The Claiming of the Ring
by europanya
Summary: Sam slays Gollum on the slopes of Mt. Doom, Frodo claims the Ring, and they are taken prisoner in Barad Dur.
1. Part One: Chapters: One to Three

TITLE: The Claiming of the Ring: Part One (1/4)

AUTHOR: Europanya

E-MAIL: europanya@yahoo.com

RATING: R, for violence, disturbing images

PAIRING: Pre-slash, gen Sam/Frodo

CATEGORY: AU, angst, WIP

ARCHIVING: Sure.

SUMMARY: What if Sam had slain Gollum on Mt. Doom and Frodo claimed the Ring? What then?

DISCLAIMER: Tolkien made Middle-earth. Tolkien made the Ring. Tolkien made Frodo to bear it. And Tolkien made Sam to bear them both. 

SPECIAL THANKS: To the happy hobbit minions at Hobbitfic who gave this a beta. And thanks to Michelle for putting up with my hobbit obsession.

POST DATE: 6/16/03

The Claiming of the Ring: Part One

by Europanya

"But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. Sam's plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he were turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue."

--- Return of the King: Mt. Doom

I

Sam stood feet apart, shoulders squared. Sting was in his fist, the point aimed at a tremulous throat. Pity had spared this creature twice before. Gollum grovelled on the stones before him, hissing and pleading for his miserable life. His crouched form was sunken and wasted by starvation and thirst, blinded by a lust he could not deny. The green pale eyes blinked in supplication; the tongue flicked and the haunted voice wheezed, "Don't kill us. Don't hurt us with nasty cruel steel!"

A debate weighed heavy in Sam's mind as he flexed his grip on the sword hilt. Rapt with anger and revenge as he was, Sam could not fail to recall how he, too, had borne the Ring, but for a day. He knew how quickly it rotted and betrayed the mind. Pity for such an abused and tortured being could be understood. Still, there could be no hope for one who had possessed It for so long--no salvation as Frodo had hoped. Experience had taught Sam this truth if none other.

*It has to be done. It should have been done before, but the job's been left to me.*

Before the creature could raise his pitiful hands to his face, Sam swung the glowing elven-blade and hewed the skull-like head from its shoulders. The bone-thin fingers froze aloft, scrabbling at air. Then, like a burnt leaf, what remained toppled to the ground, crumbling to ash where it fell on the hard stone path. 

Sam stood over the dissolving flesh, picking at it with the point of the blade. Billows of foul black stench rose from the body until nothing remained save bits of broken bone and gnarled hair. *Dusst,* the creature had hissed in his final plea. *When Precious goes we'll die, yes, die into the dust.* 

Black blood hissed and boiled off the tip of the sword until it was clean once again. Sam's anger had dissipated along with the remains, leaving only a niggling feeling in his gut that something ill would still come from this menace, even in death. With the grey thought of doubt in him, Sam sheathed the sword and began the final climb to the height of the pass.

In time he came to a towering doorway; a great heat rippled from its stone maw. His master must have entered here. Sam shut his dry eyes against the angry glow and stepped into the chamber. A heated wind blown from the depths of the fissure blew his cloak behind him as he shielded his eyes against the brilliance of the leaping flames. Ahead, Frodo stood at the precipice as a solid silhouette against the writhing churn of the molten sea below, lapping in the blackened belly of the volcano. 

"Master!" Sam cried from his scorched throat, but Frodo did not turn to him as he approached, stumbling on the trembling ground. Instead, he heard a voice that sounded more clear and powerful than any words Sam had ever heard Frodo utter, rising above the wild roar:

"I have come," he said. "But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!" And suddenly, as he set the Ring upon his finger, the black shape that had been his master vanished from Sam's sight.

Sam gave a wordless cry and ran forward to the very brink; his flesh pained by the burning wind. "Master!" he called. "Where are you?" No one answered, but in the distance Sam heard the wail of a chorus of riders. Their voices were raised to the air in fury, for their Lord understood in this moment how perilous his fate had become. 

The skin on his arms was blistering and Sam knew he had to step away from the chasm or else burn to dust much as Gollum had. He staggered back, fanning the empty air with his hands in futile hope they would catch on something familiar, all the while calling his master's name.

A great shadow passed by the door and another hard by. A belching screech filled the cavern along with the piercing cries of the wraiths as they reined their winged beasts and reared them around to enter the chamber. Sam stood in fear as one, then two and a third flew past the entrance and circled over his head, beating the hot air with their great webbed wings. He threw himself to the ground and crawled behind a large fallen rock, knowing how pointless the effort was. Ruin had befallen them; there was nowhere left to hide. The only hope crossing his mind was that Frodo may have already left this cavern and was running to someplace far away, mad though he may be.

From his tight niche Sam could see the beasts dive and flap over the liquid waves, screeching at the searing heat burning their thin wings. The wraiths were matched in a battle of wills as they gripped the reins and pulled at the beasts' foaming bits. One dove and flew close over the pathway that had led Sam into the accursed place; its talons spread wide, piercing the air as it raced past. It had nearly collided with the far wall when Sam saw it rear back and clutch something between its claws. 

Sam heard a scream and his last hope was vanquished. Frodo was captured. An invisible mass shook the space between the beast's talons as it struggled to maintain a hold. Sam drew Sting and balanced his free hand on the ground before him. He waited for the wraith to turn his mount and fly back for the door. It flew low once again and Sam leapt up onto the boulder. He sliced at the air and caught the fellbeast in the tail. Scales clattered to the ground in a rain of dark blood and the animal howled with pain, dropping its catch. Sam could see by a stirring of the ash where the sightless form had fallen. Sam ran toward the disturbance until he fell over Frodo. Sam righted himself and scrambled to pull Frodo up, to wrest the Ring from him at all costs.

Frodo howled and kicked and thrashed at him in the vacant air. Sam lost hold of the sword and it clattered to the ground, a glint of bright blue. He held a fistful of Frodo's shirt as he reached out to clamp his fingers around the hilt. "Master! Please!"

A great force bore down on Sam's back knocking the wind from him, preventing him from crying out as the claw of the fellbeast snatched at his back. The talons broke through the leather orc tunic about his shoulders. He was raised from the ground and swung through the air over the fiery pit. Sam shut his eyes, certain he was about to become a clot of melted flesh, but instead felt a cooler wind on his face and legs as he was held aloft. Opening them he saw the vast plain of Gorgoroth stretched out below his feet as he hung dangling from the beast's grip. Sting was still clutched in his hand and he struggled in the winds to sheathe it. The view was dizzying and the gripping pull on his tunic slipped; the garment wrenched tight about his neck, closing on his breath. The black smoke churned all about him as stars pricked his vision. The blackness spread into his mind and he knew no more.

II

Sam woke from a dark dream of fire and smoke to blacker shadows and hard stone under his cheek. The sound of dripping water invaded his awareness. His body was wrapped in pain from long toil and the recent bruising and tearing across his back and shoulders. He didn't want to wake to this, so he closed his eyes before they could take stock of his surroundings. He cleared his exhausted mind, taking in only one assaulted sense at a time. After the pain, he could accept the dripping sound coming from his left. It was measured and insistent, echoing upwards off a high cavernous space. *Faramir,* he thought, but knew this was not that place. It was warm in here, stifling, the air choked with a great stench of animal carcass and waste. He lay naked on a bed of hard filthy stone and putrid straw. Sweat slicked his grimy flesh from hands to feet. A prison of the Enemy. *This is where you'll find your death, Sam. And no place better.*

Sam drifted from one lost thought to another. As long as he kept his eyes shut, he figured he wouldn't have to bear the truth of his fate. He wouldn't have to embrace the injuries and pains he had suffered for so long. He was thirsty, true enough, but not with the parched desperation he had known those final days. A bitter taste lingered on his tongue. He'd been given something to drink, that he was certain. His stomach felt small, too withered to desire food any longer.

He drifted, wandering through endless green fields and along sunny water banks. If he lay here long enough he believed he might return to a place where the air was crisp and clean and filled with the scent of blossoms--where he would no longer have to endure the stench of his own body and...

His eyes flew open, heart hammering. He was not alone. Not alone! Raising up on shaking arms, Sam peered into the gloom of his cell. Black bars ran from stone floor to arched ceiling and a torch flamed on a distant outer wall. He was in a dungeon, a lockhole, one cell of several along the four walls of a wide square room opening into dark corridors. Turning about, Sam saw the dripping crack in the stone wall which provided algae-slimed water into a rusted bowl one drop at a time. Straw littered the floor, black and rotten with filth. In a nest of that filth lay another hobbit, naked and curled into himself.

Sam's heart swelled with hope as he crawled to him across the cell floor and struggled to pull him into his quaking arms. *He's here! Bless the Lady! He's here, with me!*

Frodo's pale skin was clammy to his touch as Sam turned him over in his arms. His back and side were mottled with clots of blood and reddened with burns. He had been carried in the grip of one of the beasts and the claws had broken the tender skin. Frodo's face was quiet, as if he was in a deep slumber, but the white colour of his dry lips frightened Sam terribly. He raised Frodo's face to his ear that he might be able to feel him breathing. The faintest puffs stirred against his cheek. Frodo's shrunken chest hitched shallowly. He was alive but dangerously in need of water. It looked to Sam as if their captors had tried to force him to drink the same fluid that had been poured down his own throat, but had only succeeded in spilling it across his master's neck in a brown stain. 

Sam dragged them both to the water bowl which had filled near to the rim. He cupped some of it in his hand and poured it over Frodo's mouth. The oily water oozed across his lips and dripped to the floor. Sam rocked him gently. "Master, dear master. Sam is here. Please try to drink." 

He pleaded and whispered to Frodo, holding him, stroking his face, trying to slip the precious drops into his silent mouth. With great patience and care Sam managed to wet the sealed lips and chin. Whether by instinct or reflex, Frodo sputtered for a moment and Sam was able to pour a few mouthfuls into his throat. But that was all. Frodo did not open his eyes nor speak. Sam held him close and rocked him, thinking of nothing else.

***

Some hours passed and Sam had given in to his thirst, lifting the bowl carefully and draining all but a few swallows of it in his need. He could have drunk ten bowls without a thought. He set it back under the dripping stones, chiding himself for his lack of restraint. What if Mr. Frodo woke? 

But Frodo didn't wake and lay motionless in Sam's arms. Outside in the chamber not a soul stirred. Far off behind many walls and passages echoing noises could be heard--shouts and marching of many feet. Drums beat and horns blew from time to time, but no one came into their dark hole. And Sam was glad of it for now. He felt a little stronger after his drink, not so dizzy. He leaned back against the cool stones with Frodo slumped across his lap, and sleep overtook him once again.

***

A scrape of iron and the clanging of keys woke Sam from his dreams. He'd fallen to his side and his shoulder was stiff and cramped from lying so long on the hard stone. His vision swam but he could see the hunched form of an orc sliding open the barred door to their cell. Another stood close by, holding a large ring of keys. Sam lay still, eyes half closed so he could observe the grotesque creature. It was short and clawed with long arms and a thick armoured chest that bore the red eye emblem of Sauron. It carried a waterbag over its shoulder and a whip in its right hand. A long knife was belted to its waist. It came over to them and toed at Frodo's inert body with a boot tip. It was all Sam could do not to jump and set his fingers about its neck, but the orc keeping watch just outside their door gave him pause. He knew he was far too weak to fight two at once.

The orc inside their cell called out to the other. "Why are we bothering to nurse these two? I thought they were scheduled for the Round Room. They should be hanging by their ankles or sitting pretty on some comfy spikes."

"Ack! Don't you listen to your orders? His Lordship has something special planned for these little thieves," hissed the second orc outside their cell. "Something they won't soon forget, I hear. We're to keep them alive until He sends for 'em."

"Special, eh?" said the first orc, lifting Frodo's head up by the hair. "This little one here don't look to be breathing much longer. There'll be nothing left to tickle and tease. What is it they stole?"

"Mind your prying tongue, Nagh. It's not your business to ask questions. Just give 'em a drink and let's leave 'em."

The orc tipped Frodo's head back so his chin dropped open. It poured a brownish fluid from the sack into his mouth until Frodo coughed and swallowed some of it, ere his body convulsed and sent it back up, splashing at the orc's feet. "Garn! Filthy rat can't hold his water," it snarled, dropping Frodo to the ground. "Let's see about the other."

Sam lay limp and allowed himself to be pulled up by the arm, dirty claws poking his flesh. When the drink hit his lips he accepted it, hoping there might be some truth to what the orcs were saying, that this fluid might be designed to keep them alive. The liquid was sharp and burned the tongue and throat like a bad brewing; though it did not appear to be an alcohol. Whatever it was, it sent a jolt of renewed strength to his limbs almost instantly. His head felt clearer as he was thrown to the stones next to Frodo. Sam waited for the orc to turn about before he gathered all his waxing strength and leapt to his feet, lunging for the knife. He knocked the orc to its knees as he tugged at the scabbard. It broke free and before the orc could rise on its legs, Sam had the blade to its throat.

"Hi, you! Look sharp!" Sam shouted to the remaining orc. "Toss me the keys and your knife or his head will be rolling on the stones."

The orc leered at Sam through the bars. "Carve 'im up all you like, little elf-rat. There's more where he came from. He won't be missed."

Sam pressed the blade into the neck of the orc. The knife was sharp and he could feel cold blood begin to ooze over his knuckles. The creature clawed at the floor with its long arms and hissed, but remained firmly in Sam's grip. The orc outside began to laugh in a low rattle.

"You cut him deep enough, I might not have to hear his rotten speech any longer. Try a bit more slicing; saw at 'im." The orc made a hand motion to demonstrate.

Sam's mind scrambled for a solution. He hadn't counted on the cruelty of his captors to be this complete. If he killed the one, then how would he get to the second? If they denied him food and water long enough they'd be able to retrieve the knife easily and most likely return the favour. He hesitated far too long. The orc broke free from Sam's slippery bloody grip and lunged for its whip. Sam staggered back, knife in hand. The leather snapped through the stale air, catching him across the arm with a lash of red fire. He ground his teeth against the pain, just one more hurt to bear as he held his stance waiting for an opening.

The bleeding orc laughed at him and danced the whip from hand to hand. "You think you can fool me twice, little elf-rat? Let us see." The orc was skilled with the whip and aimed its next lash across the space between them to wrap tightly about Sam's wrist. The orc pulled sharply, and wrung the knife from Sam's fist. It skittered across the stones to its boots. The orc picked up the knife and waved it tauntingly at Sam. "Drop something?" it hissed in delight. The orc outside the bars was laughing as well. It seemed this was but a game to them. Neither had been much impressed by Sam's threat. This was not the first time one of them had caught a lick from a prisoner, it seemed. 

The whip lashed again, catching Sam by the ankles, yanking him to the ground. The orc was over him in a second, pressing the point of the knife into the hollow of his throat, grinning around its fangs. Blood dripped black on Sam's chest from the cut he'd made in the foul hide. "How shall I repay you, eh?" the orc taunted, digging the knife point this way and that. "You gave me quite a scratch."

"Your manners, Nagh," warned the orc from outside the cell. "You'll be feeling more than a scratch if you mar that little filth's hide. His skin's for his Lordship to peel."

The orc leaned in close, its knee in Sam's stomach, still digging with the knife, yet not quite breaking the skin. Sam held very still, though the rotten stench of the orc's breath was driving him to gag. "How's this?" the orc asked, grabbing Sam by the hair with its free claw. It wrenched back Sam's head, knocking his skull senseless against the stones.

***

When Sam roused, his head was split in two it seemed by sharp nauseating pain. The ceiling swam before his eyes in the fragmented torchlight. The bowl of water had filled to overflowing since his losing battle and a thin river ran from it out under the bars. When Sam felt he could move, he soon discovered only one arm would answer his call. He looked behind him; his right wrist was clamped in an iron band and chained to the wall above him. He pulled at it, but the fastening held tight. *Frodo?*

Sam twisted his throbbing head about and was shocked and much relieved at first to find his master sitting up against the far wall, eyes open, watching him.

"Mr. Frodo? Are you all right?" Sam asked. Frodo did not respond and Sam began to understand that the gaze behind those large watchful eyes was vacant. "Frodo? Can you hear me?" Still no sign of a response. Something was terribly wrong. 

Sam struggled to sit up and passed a tentative hand over the swollen gash on the back of his head. He was a fool to think he could take on a pair of orcs like that. He needed to think harder and plan carefully. Now that he knew Frodo lived, Sam's purpose was renewed. He was no longer that shy hobbit who had walked out of the Shire the previous year. Sam had grown cunning and hardened to his sufferings. He no longer held any fear for his own skin, and had only one remaining desire-the need to protect the master he loved. Sam would find a way for them to escape if it took him to the last breath of his life.

The chain was binding but long enough Sam could reach the water bowl and most of the way across the cell. He could not reach the door, however, nor Frodo, who sat just out of his reach. Sam took a desperate drink from the bowl, saving half of it. Then he pulled himself as close to Frodo as he could, the bowl cradled in his lap. "Did you drink, sir?"

Frodo's empty eyes rolled upwards and over, taking in the surroundings, nothing more. No expression presented itself across his pale, grimed face. It did not look as if he had drunk yet. Shadows rimmed his eyes and hollowed his cheeks. Sam held the bowl out to him and when Frodo failed to take it, he set it as close to him as he dared while keeping it within his strained reach. 

"It's good to see you sitting up, sir," Sam said softly. He thought that if he spoke to Frodo with ease he might be able to rouse him. "It's true we're in a bit of a tight spot here, but there's water at least. That's more than we had before. I saved half the bowl for you. It fills every few hours by my reckoning. The orc draughts are hard to swallow, but they seem to give the heart some strength. I've handled two of them now and seem as well as can be expected. Won't you try to drink?"

Frodo looked at the bowl but made no move toward it, though his dry lips parted in expectation. Sam continued his talk.

"I can't say rightly where we are. Last I can recall we were being brought over the plains. I sorely hope it isn't the Dark Tower, but there's no use worrying over it until I can find us a away out from behind these bars. But don't you worry, Mr. Frodo, your Sam will find a way out, no mistake." Speaking these promises aloud helped Sam reassure himself that he did have a hope of setting them free. *Setting us free to go where?* Sam's darker thoughts interceded. *They have the Ring. Is there anywhere in Middle-earth where we can ever go now in peace?*

Frodo stirred and reached for the bowl, dragging it closer across the stones to his knee. His eyes fell to the murky fluid as if he'd never seen water before, nor knew what to do with it.

"Have a drink now, Mr. Frodo. It's all right."

Frodo brought the bowl to his lap and eventually, to Sam's relief, dipped his hand in the water, licking the drops from his fingertips. He did this a few times until something snapped deep in Frodo's mind and he lifted the rusty vessel, drinking frantically from it in gulps until it was emptied. Frodo let the bowl drop into his lap and stared at it. He resumed dipping his fingers below the empty rim, as if they would once again find it filled.

"It won't fill by wishing. We need to set it back under the stones, Mr. Frodo," Sam said, pointing behind him. "Back over there, see? It collects and then you can have another drink." This seemed to be too much for Frodo's comprehension and he made a weak sound, sliding to his side toward Sam, letting the bowl roll across the floor out of Sam's reach. But Frodo's head was close enough for Sam to touch and he lay flat on the stones at the limit of his chain to run a dirty hand over the matted mass that crowned his master's head. 

***

Sam lay with his belly upon the stones for some time, though they hurt his ribs. It didn't matter to him anymore what his body felt, as long as Frodo was within his reach. This was the only thing that mattered anymore--keeping Frodo comforted as best he could. 

When he heard Frodo pass back into sleep, Sam got up and searched the cell carefully. He began to cover every stone, every crack, with keen eyes and fingers, learning everything he could. His ears were pricked to any sound he could discern, listening for patterns that might give him clues to his advantage. He could see into the square room and the dark corridors beyond, two of them. Sometimes orc guards passed through with torches, but for the most part Sam could not see or hear any other prisoners. It seemed this dungeon was not much in use. 

Slowly, he worked his way around the space as far as his wrist iron would allow. He came to a mat of straw in the far corner, not far from where Frodo had been sitting earlier, but where Sam had not yet peered. He got down and began to paw through the soiled mass with his hands, immune now to its repugnance. His fingers brushed cloth and he was amazed to draw the familiar grey weave of his Elvin cloak from the refuse. He held it in his hands, unbelieving. *How did this get here?* he wondered. *Why did they take everything else, but leave this?*

Perhaps it was with orcs as it had been with Gollum, he surmised. The cloth held some virtue that bit evil hands. Perhaps they had dropped it and kicked it aside. Sam looked about him and when he knew no creature had seen him, nor was coming down the halls, he took the cloak and walked to the end of his chain. He held it by the ends and tossed the hood out and over the fallen water bowl. The hood closed around it. Sam dragged the tin slowly as to draw no sound, until he could grasp it and set it back under the dripping stone. Then he rolled the cloak up tightly and stashed it as far back in the corner as he could reach and piled straw atop it.

The cell revealed no other clues and Sam was becoming dizzy again from the mere act of standing. He sat heavily on the floor, as close to Frodo as he could, and held a conversation with himself: *Well, you've got water now, Sam Gamgee, so there's that. But what of food? You've not eaten a bite in days or more and that will be doing you no good much longer. Strength is what you'll need if you're to get the both of you out of this. Mr. Frodo's not all here and won't be much help, so if offerings come, best you take the lot of it and leave him but a bite. It'll break your heart in two, but a broken heart won't stop you from laying your hands about an orc's throat.*

And so it was settled. Food did come later that evening, or day, delivered by a short dull-eyed orc, slipped without fuss or mockery through the bars. Sam reached against his restraint for the shallow pan of gruel. He slurped it up as best he could, leaving but a swallow for Frodo, whom he could not rouse either way. He set the pan near the wall, and lying stretched on the stones, reached out to wind a few fingers into Frodo's hair and went to sleep.

***

Sam woke sometime later to find himself covered by soft cloth. He opened his eyes. Frodo sat crouched before him and the Elvin cloak slipped off Sam's shoulders as he sat up. He grabbed it quickly and wound it into a bundle. Crawling past Frodo, he hid it again in the straw. Frodo looked saddened and stared at the floor, but he was near enough to Sam now to touch. Sam took him in his arms and held him close. Frodo merely sighed and rested his head against Sam's shoulder. 

"Oh, Frodo," Sam whispered. "Not that I don't appreciate your kindness, but we'd best leave that cloak hidden. I've got a plan how I might use it to get us free, but it won't work if they know about it. Come now, Mr. Frodo. Try a little food."

Sam led Frodo to the pan. To his dismay, it was crawling with small black worms. He picked them out one by one until the swill was clear and raised the pan to Frodo's lips. He managed to coax his master into taking a few swallows, but no more. Hunger seemed to be a need Frodo no longer responded to. Thirst was, however. Sam could see that Frodo had drunk from the bowl while he slept and set it back under the drip stone as well. This heartened Sam, but made him feel no less urgent about taking the much needed risk to get them free and soon. 

He led Frodo slowly to the straw pile and reached in to tear a scrap of elf cloth from the hem of the cloak. He dabbed the swatch in the puddle left by the water bowl, and laying Frodo across his lap, set about cleaning his wounds as best he could, wipe by wipe. Somewhere in the distant chamber corridors he could hear the muffled screams of a creature in torment. Not man or hobbit or elf: one of their own, punished by their evil laws and ways. 

Frodo lay with his eyes half-open, relaxed in Sam's arms as he tended to him. Faintly, Frodo began to hum something sweet and light, a remnant of beauty slipping from his cloistered heart. Sam could not name it, though the melody seemed familiar and for the first time in weeks, Sam allowed himself to weep silently. He knew that if he did not succeed on the morrow, he would lay a hand over that sweetly humming mouth until it failed, and breathed no more.

III

Sam woke with Frodo curled against him, breathing softly at his neck. In the torchlight, Sam could not tell the time, but he guessed several hours had passed by the spilling rim of the water bowl and the return of the worms to the gruel pan. Another pan would be delivered soon, but this time Sam would not be taking part of it. With great reluctance, he unwound himself from Frodo's arms and lay him as best he could near the far wall, away from the straw which Sam now gathered into a careful pile.

Sam went to the bowl and drank the vessel dry. He smeared his hands in the runoff on the stones to clean them of sweat and grease. He looked to the crawling food pan. It was alive with plump wriggling life. *If offerings come...* Sam did not waste them this time.

As predicted, the gruel-distributing orc soon came and paused at their cell door to shove a new porridge-filled pan through the bars. It paused, sniffling in the dim light. "Hark ye poor wretches! Food's come! Where's your dirty bowl? It needs collecting." When no reply came the orc grew puzzled, for there seemed to be only one prisoner occupying the cell, lying motionless near the far wall. "Hark ye now! Where's the other wretch? Off to the Round Room? Aye, he'll not be looking for supper."

When nothing stirred, the orc took up its chain of long keys and fit one in the slot, drawing the knife in the other claw. It left the door open as it went over to Frodo and dug a toe into his flesh. Frodo let out a low sigh and nothing more. "Looks as if yer not wanting to eat none," the orc remarked and put up the knife. "Waste of time coming up this way." 

The orc then moved across the cell to pick up the empty food pan lying on the shallow patch of straw. It bent over to grasp the tin with long fingers when something small and vice-like gripped its arm, pulling it off balance and toppling it head-first into the straw.

Sam's hidden shape lunged from under the cloak, which had hidden him in the straw bed. He leapt upon the floundering orc's back, wrapping the wrist chain twice about its gasping throat. Sam pulled back on the chain for everything he was worth, tightening it. The orc kicked and thrashed, clawing at the chain, sending straw flying all over the cell. The restriction of the chain around its windpipe prevented a screech from leaving the bony throat. 

Sam held on and bit by bit was able to pull the chain just a little tighter, hand over hand. Minutes went by and still the orc fought him. Sam felt blood rise in his own mouth from biting down, willing himself to not let up for a moment. He got his foot up on the orc's shoulder and pulled with the last of his strength. There was a snapping sound and the creature fell limp. Dead.

Sam collapsed to his knees, gasping, his arms shaking from the effort. But he couldn't stop now and crawled over the creature to grab the keys. There were many of them, but eventually Sam found one that fit the lock on his wrist iron. It wasn't an exact match, but with a bit of wiggling and patience, he got the tongue to give and his hand came free. 

Knowing his time was marked, Sam heaved the orc over and began to undress it, tearing at seams and ties until he got the long tunic up off its black stringy head. Sam put this on and it fell past his knees. He took up the cloak, clasped it to his throat then unbuckled the orc's knife belt and secured it about his waist. The orc had carried no other weapon, save the keys and Sam took these also, looping them through the belt in case they came in handy. Now dressed, Sam kicked the corpse into the straw and covered it as best he could, allowing a bit of naked spine to show. Darker than his own skin, but with all the grime he'd been living in, probably as good a match as any. He knew he'd have four, maybe five hours before the draught-bearing orcs arrived. If they arrived at all.

Now for the hardest part. Sam came to his master and kneeling, lifted his limp head into his arms, kissing the pale forehead. 

"Lie quiet now, Mr. Frodo. It breaks me to know I'll have to leave you here a time alone. I shan't be gone longer than I need. May no foul hand touch you, or else I'll hunt them to the ends of the earth. Don't think I won't. Wait here for Sam!" 

Sam laid him back on the floor and kissed each hand before rising to slip out of their cell. He secured the barred door behind him, locking Frodo in, and made for a darkened corridor. 

Continued in Part Two


	2. Part Two: Chapters: One to Eight

The Claiming of the Ring: Part II

by Europanya

No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts, where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth, alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate.

---The Two Towers: The Choices of Master Samwise

I

Sam stood in the shadows and drew the orc knife. He brought it to a cornerstone at the end of the passage from which he had just emerged and carved a small rune in the black rock. He rubbed it with his fingertip to see if he could find it by feel if need be. He could, so he stood and stilled his breathing to listen. 

Sounds, distorted and muffled, came from far below him now. He had chosen well which passages to take out of the dungeon and to the best of his reckoning, had continued to progress ever more upwards and outwards. Only twice now had he passed an orc at a fair distance. Each time he had drawn the cloak hard about him, knife at the ready, and had hidden crouched in the darkest corner. He made no sound as he progressed through the maze of passages, turn after turn, marking the cornerstones as he went so he could find his way back.

Twice on this long journey, Sam had been forced to leave his master behind. After many long hours of thought, Sam had come to the difficult conclusion that the cloak could not hide two, and that he would move faster and fool the guards longer if he went alone. If he could find a clear way out first, then he might have a better chance of freeing them both. Still, nothing hurt more than the thought of Mr. Frodo waking confused and frightened without Sam to comfort him. He hoped that his choice would not end in folly this time and that Frodo lay quiet, unaware of his absence. But he could not think about his master lying alone on the cell floor and keep his legs moving forward, so he pushed those thoughts back into his sore heart and listened to the echoes.

A flight of stairs rose in a passage to his left and Sam took them as quickly as he dared. To his surprise, the walls began to glow with a faint source of light as he climbed higher. Presently, the stairs levelled out into an empty turret of four long slit windows whistling in the winds, cooling the sweat on his skin. A hard red light cut through them, angling to the flagstones. 

Sam skirted the nearest wall and peered out cautiously, hoping he'd found the first level above ground. The lofty view presented to him only proved his worst fears and sent his heart into his belly. The broken edge of the Ephel Dúath stretched southward to his right against an ash-choked, fiery sky. Below plunged many hundred feet of black stone and smoky torchlight, flickering among seemingly endless windows, spires, gates and battlements. Barad-dûr was his jailer, and he was a crow's flight from the ground.

Sam felt sick and stepped back from the window to regain himself. _Where did you think the Dark Lord would put you? In a pony stable?_ _You knew where you were all along. But how are you ever to find a way out? It's near nine-hundred feet to the bottom if it's a yard. You've been gone from your master past an hour and all you've found is a window. Four of them at that. But your feet brought you here a-purpose, so's best have a look out the rest._

Window by window, Sam surveyed the oppressive view and began to get some hold on his position within the fortress. The dungeon which he had mistaken for underground, appeared to be a confusing windowless maze of cells and corridors winding into the core of the structure, making it difficult for prisoners to find a way out. What hadn't made much sense was its lack of use for a kingdom at war. But Sam did not waste his time pondering this now.

Sam tried to remember everything he could about the Dark Tower from their trek across the barren planes and distant whispered warnings uttered by Gandalf or Aragorn. How he wished one of them was here now to counsel him. But he doubted that even Gandalf could have seen this end for them. He could recall looking at the Tower from a great distance just a handful of days ago, grateful they needn't go any closer. 

It seemed to him he was now standing within the highest pinnacle, where the main tower tapered and culminated in that terrible pulsing eye. Sam did not want to think where that was and hoped he would never see it. How he would ever find his way down the many turns and labyrinths of this terrible place in time to carry Frodo out, Sam had no earthly idea. Once they discovered him gone, no doubt every orc in Mordor would be set upon their re-capture. _See then if you'd find yourself bound by just your wrist._

At the fourth and last window, whatever glimmer of hope Sam had been futilely clinging to faded entirely. This window faced to the East and Sam could see the angry red line of fire that stretched across Gorgoroth from the great crack in the mountain. The lava flowed along a canal that poured its evil down into a fathomless glowing moat surrounding the Tower's base. Tens of thousands of orcs, Southrons, Easterlings and Haradrim swarmed below, spilling out of the iron foregate, across the great black bridge and onto the plains. The fell armies marched like beetles for many miles out to the distant Black Gate, vanishing in the gloom. There would be no escape.

Sam's knees gave out and he slid to the stones, dropping the knife beside him with a clatter. _I'm really here, aren't I? Not a dream at all. _Sam saw himself now as only a tiny drop of life cast to float or drown in an unforgiving sea. Weary beyond measure with starvation and toil, his exhaustion fell upon him like a headstone and blackness took over his mind. He sat motionless, staring ahead into the intersected rays of red window light.

Over some minutes, sense came back to him and the first thought Sam mustered was that he would not die upon an orc blade. Nor would he live to see Frodo become a guest of the Round Room. Gollum had no doubt known this place as Sam could recall evidenced by the long scars criss-crossing his paper-thin hide. Death had been a mercy for him; death would be a mercy for them all.

He'll not have us for sport. I don't care how all-powerful this Dark Lord may be. He'll not have us! But if you give up now, Samwise, this will sure be your end and worse an end for your master. So on your feet!

As Sam rose, he could see Frodo on a distant road walking in the sunlight. His master's eyes were bright and clear; a walking stick was in his hand and not a care in the world on his shoulders. "Come along, Sam. Don't fall too far behind." Sam could still hear that kind voice and remember how he ran up to meet him, taking his hand, ready for their first journey together, so many summers ago. That the horror of their capture had driven that voice from his master's lips helped Sam reach beyond his despair. From someplace deep in his hobbit's constitution, Sam found a will strong enough to believe that he might yet escape the most terrible prison Middle-earth had suffered to build in three ages.

You've followed him your whole life. But now he needs you to find a way for him. He can't call to you no more. What's done is done. Tears will only make things the worse. He wouldn't want you wasting your strength crying over it. 

_Now use your head. Dad would say to you, "If you can't find your way down a mountain, Samwise, then best you turn 'round and go up." This tower ain't floating in the air_. _It's got its back up against that mountainside. We'd seen it at a distance. Maybe there's a door. A back way like at Bag End for when Bilbo's troublesome relation came calling. Dark Lords must have relation, too, don't they?_

With no clear plan in his head other than "up," Sam left the turret, the orc knife in his grip. Though the need to hurry back to Frodo before it was too late weighed hard upon him, Sam could not yet accept defeat. At the base of the stairs he moved on in a fresh direction, away from the dungeon maze.

Sam soon found himself on a passage which wound up an incline along the right-hand curve of the Tower. At the end of it, he came to an archway at the beginning of a flight of unusually tall steps rising high into the topmost reaches of the Tower. The stones were cut from a different rock and polished much more smoothly than the rest. Torchlight splashed across them like sunset on a frozen pond. It seemed to him a voice spoke deep inside his head, telling him to take those stairs for good or ill.

Well, I said 'up,' and 'up' there is still to go. I'll climb it even if the Eye itself is waiting for me.

Sam climbed the flight in the truest sense, for his legs were too short to clear them standing upright. It was a long struggle and he was growing more tired after each scramble and pull. He was dizzy again and panting hard when he cleared the last step and saw that he had come to a landing with three massive sealed doors. Each were inscribed with flowing script that wavered in the flickering light of a large circular fire pit. He could not read the runes, but took them for some form of twisted Elvish. He pressed his hand to all three, giving a little shove, but all were sealed as fast as the doors of Moria. Convinced he had come to a dead end, Sam turned to leave when he heard a voice in his head, clear as day, say: _Hide and wait._

Although he could not explain it, Sam felt the voice was speaking to him for the good and that he should heed it. _Hide where?_ Sam asked and looked about. To the left of the three doors a stone had fallen, creating a narrow cleft between itself and the wall. Sam made for this and crawled underneath the massive block, hoping it was wedged sturdily. Then he laid his chin on his arms and waited.

II

To his dread, Sam soon heard footfalls ascending the passage. Peering through the shadows of his hiding place, Sam could see the approaching figure of a tall man dressed in polished armour of many intricate plates. At once, he was reminded of the Black Riders, except that this servant of the Enemy was very much alive. 

The man paused before the central door and uttered words in a harsh tongue that sent a chill through Sam. The ground shook and Sam could see the centre door tremble and slide open to allow the man entrance. Before he did so, the man turned his head and sniffed the air as if something offended him. Sam tensed, but the man passed through the door and the stone resealed itself.

After the door quieted, Sam could hear the snarl of orc voices coming up the stairs below. Two of the creatures were speaking with each other in their rude, gruff manner. Sam pulled the corner of his hood back from his ear to listen.

"Why's the Lieutenant cracking the seal on the armoury?" asked an orc with a rasping voice. Sam could see their shadows against the wall, but their forms remained just beyond the curve of the passage.

"His Lordship's made a request for him to send out a weapon from the ancient days. The sword of the Golden King, I hear. He means to take it with him when he rides to claim the enemy's city next dawn," answered the other.

"Is it one of those nasty elf blades? I had to carry one up last night. Small it was, but full of trickery and elf-light. I can't get the bite of it off my hands." Sam could see the orc twist its claws together in the shadow on the wall.

"His Lordship's armoury ain't for your hands, worm. But I heard this was a powerful tark weapon, hammered before the world was remade. They say his Lordship's foe is of the ancient blood."

It was now that Sam understood the Dark Lord had not only reclaimed the Ring but had taken physical shape once more. He had ridden out to face his enemies, and was now preparing to claim the last stronghold of the race of men in Middle-earth.

The ground rattled again and the Lieutenant emerged from the door bearing a long jewelled scabbard of dark leather. He paused again, looking about and called one of the orcs to him.

"Arknag, come see about this smell. I'll not suffer such a stench to linger so near his Lordship's quarters."

The orc bowed to the Lieutenant. "What stench, my lord?"

The Lieutenant grasped the orc by his leather strappings and raised him with one hand until his feet dangled. "Clear your nose, maggot, and find it!" he ordered and threw the orc to the ground. The orc grovelled and whimpered upon the stones until the armoured man left the Hall of the Doors and descended the passage. The orc stood up and gave a cursory sniff of the air, then sniffed himself, shrugged and moved doggedly after them.

Sam lay still and waited until their footfalls were no longer heard. He slipped out of his hiding place and returned to the central door. He touched it and on a whim uttered what he thought was close to the same words the Lieutenant had spoken. When nothing happened on the fourth try, Sam sighed and made to leave. 

_Ash ghash krim! _the voice in his head commanded. As Sam felt the words leave his lips unbidden, the door shuddered and split at his summons and Sam passed quickly within.

The light was very dim inside. Sam stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He was in a large domed room, the sparse glow of Mordor's red sky filtered down through the thick stained glass that ornamented the dome. The curved walls of the enclosure were hung with weapons of every size and kind Sam could name, and many he couldn't: swords, knives, crossbows, axes, scimitars, morning stars, flails and others. Some were polished and fair, others blackened and crude. Although he could not have known it, Sam stood within a circle of the finest weaponry forged since the world was made. These were armaments collected from Sauron's fallen enemies; some were thousands of years old and still readied for battle. 

In the centre of the room stood a pedestal and upon it rested a flawless black stone sphere. Sam felt drawn to it and stepped closer across a finely woven carpet of ancient symbols and runes. The stone was not much larger than his head but looked to weigh many pounds. Without having a clear notion of what he did or why, Sam toed his way up the ornate pedestal so he could reach his hand out to touch it. The centre of the stone lit up with a bright blue flame. Sam was fearful he'd make his presence known. All the same, he clung to his perch, fixated by the swirling colour that grew until it lit the entire sphere.

The flame flashed and an image took its place. Sam saw a vast grassy plain laid waste by the marching of many iron-shod feet and the grinding wheels of siege engines drawn by trolls more enormous than the one Sam had helped fight in Moria. There were hundreds of these beasts all pulling and marching with the armies Sam had seen pouring from the Dark Tower's gate. Ahead of this black mass stood the white walls of a city on a mountainside. Fair and brave it looked, banners flowing in the winds, as it faced its encroaching foe. 

Another flash and the scene changed to reveal that same city corrupted by black smoke and ringed with fire rising from pits carved into the fields around it. Before Sam's mind could absorb the vision, he was shown another of tall masted ships of many sails journeying up a great river from the sea. On one of these ships he saw a sword, long and proud, held in the grip of a mighty warrior, helmed and dressed for battle. 

The next flash showed Sam a view he had seen before of the Black Gates, now cracked open and spilling forth with armies of orcs and fell men too vast to count. They flooded the surrounding plains and Sam believed he saw large birds like eagles flying over these foes and screeching into the winds. 

The rest came more quickly and in such hurried succession, that Sam could not recall all the images until later. For within these were now intermingled the faces of those he had travelled with and loved: Pippin, Gandalf, Aragorn, each bent as if they held something heavy in their hands. The rest were pictures of war and of the slaying of many thousands of men bearing the splay of the White Tree upon their breastplates. They lay in the dust, bleeding into the parched ground, their banners fallen about them. He saw what he believed to be their ghosts marching behind the raised sword of that great warrior Sam had seen upon the ship; ever marching, ever on. 

Then suddenly Aragorn's face filled the stone. His eyes were bloodshot and his lips curled in wrath. "Show yourself!" he demanded. "Remove your hood and be known to me!"

Aragorn's voice snapped Sam from his trance and he stumbled back to the floor, knocking his wounded head on the carpet. It hurt all the same. He groaned and shook his head, unaware that the images in the stone were true and had travelled both ways. _That was a fool thing to do_. _What's gotten into your head? You'd best get out of this place before you sound the alarm._

Sam got to his feet and hurried back toward the door, which had remained open. Sam had not known the words to seal it and the voice in his head had offered no suggestions. He passed a richly carved chair and a glint of blue caught his eye in the shadows. He stopped and looked to it. 

"Sting!" he cried aloud, as if greeting an old friend. The sword lay in a small pile of larger weapons awaiting their turn to be hung upon the outer walls. The sword was still in its scabbard and Sam could see it was in fine condition, glowing a healthy blue as he drew it. This did not surprise him much as he knew every step he took from here on would be choked with orcs. He buckled the belt about his waist and sheathed the sword.

Just beyond the chair where Sting had lain was a low stone table inset with glass. Jewels of some sort lay inside it. Curious, Sam stepped around the chair and peered in for a closer look. The display held three small silver rings each set with a dark-green gem that glinted in the dim light. The table was meant to hold seven, the remaining indentations lying vacant as if they'd been recently pinched by a thief. Sam wondered why he'd be puzzled by this when so many matters of greater importance loomed over him, but he paused to consider it carefully: _three of seven_… Something Gandalf had said in Rivendell struck him to the marrow and the wildest impulse Samwise Gamgee of the Shire ever fostered came over him. He drew Sting from its sheath and taking the hilt in both hands, smashed the glass top of the display into shards, plucking the three rings up in his palm. He held them for a moment before slipping them carefully into a pocket of the orc tunic.

_Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone. _If these were indeed the three Sauron had reclaimed, Sam surmised, then he had found the reason he was meant to enter this secret chamber.

"Fancied yourself a parting gift?"

Sam jumped at the orc's rasp behind him. It had returned as ordered with mop and bucket to clean up the unidentified stench and had found its source quite easily. Sting in his hands, Sam turned and swung, the blade cutting sharply through the mop handle that dropped from the orc's claws. 

As Sam recovered his balance, the orc grabbed a curved black scimitar lying on a nearby display. It swung a return blow at him and met edge for edge against Sting, blades sparking in the dim light. The shock of the blow numbed Sam's arms and toppled him back off his feet. He ducked and rolled as the orc sliced the air yet again. This orc was a few hands taller than Sam and heavier. Sam knew he did not have the advantage and got to his feet, running backwards to draw some distance between them.

The orc did not pursue him, but rather bent its gnarled knees and positioned itself between Sam and the exit, grimacing and spitting at the stones. "Come on! Give us a fight! Give me something to mop up, eh?"

_Grab a stone! Grab a stone! _When faced with a mightier foe, all hobbits are taught to stoop and pick up a rock. Sam quickly scanned the walls and tables around him. Something metallic and round caught his eye. Several polished balls hung in an iron basket off to his left. Sam ran for it and with one blow of the sword, severed the leather straps that held the basket suspended, pouring the balls to the floor in a noisy clatter. They were projectiles meant for a trebuchet, but Sam knew nothing of mechanised warfare and stooped behind a stone chest to load his fist.

"Where you gone? Where you hiding? Come on out and meet my pretty blade!"

Sam stayed low and weighed the ball in his hand, his hobbit's instinct measuring force and trajectory. He sucked in a breath and stood, hurling the object dead-even for the orc's forehead, knocking it to the floor with a nice smack of iron on bone. The orc lay motionless. Sam gasped in chuckled amazement at his accuracy. It had been many a day since he'd broken bottles with Jolly on the sheep fence in Bywater. _You've still got your arm, Sam. Ol' Bill Ferny would agree, too!_

Sam wiped the sweat from his forehead and caught his breath. Then, with Sting in one hand and a fresh projectile in the other, he went and stood over the orc's fallen form. It still breathed and Sam made short work of the orc with Sting across its throat. Sam tucked the iron ball into the free pocket opposite the rings, wiped his blade on the rug, and left the mess for some other creature to mop up.

III

Three hours had passed since he left the prison, if Sam could trust his sense of time, and he had failed to find any passage which might lead up and out the top of Barad-dûr. Sam was getting very thirsty again and his legs were weakening from lack of nourishment. His mind had been wandering in a waking dream for some time and he knew he could go no further unless he paused to rest. 

Sting glowing dully in his hand, Sam slid into the corner of a long dark corridor and shut his eyes, leaning his cheek against the stone wall. What was he to do? _Your time is about gone, Samwise. You can't be leaving Mr. Frodo alone much longer. You've not got hardly anything left in you to help him. _Sam felt tears stinging his eyes, though he tried to stop them. Moisture was precious and he didn't know if he would ever find water again, nor if he would need it. 

"I'm sorry, Dad," Sam whispered. "I just couldn't find a way out. Please tell Ham and Hal and the girls, and Tom, Nick, Jolly, Nibs, and sweet Rosie, that I'm sorry. I'm sorry I gave up. But I couldn't leave him alone! Not even if he didn't know me. I haven't a heart to go on in this terrible world if Mr. Frodo's not in it."

Sam swallowed the pain in his dry throat and got once more to his aching feet. He walked wearily to the corner and felt for his mark. It was not where he had left it. Sam's fingers began to shake as he sheathed Sting to feel with both hands, up and down the stones, and again on the opposite side, if perchance he'd marked to his right instead of his left. No marks. The stones were untouched. Panic rose in Sam as he hurried back up the corridor to the last turning and felt again. No marks. 

_Confound it! Sam, you fool! When did you stop checking turns?_ In his exhaustion, Sam had lost count and had not thought to feel the stones. _No! No!_

He tugged at his hair and slapped his cheeks that he might force a memory into focus. But Sam was weaker than he'd allowed himself to believe and while his body had forced itself along the many passages, his mind had drifted, unable to keep a clear reckoning of where he had come from or gone. The last Sam could recall was passing a hall of six archways where he knew he had marked the leftmost doorway. He knew it! That was where he had gone wrong. He had to locate the six arches or he would never find his way back. And that was the worst fate Sam could ever imagine, to become lost and never see Frodo again.

Sam's heart beat rapidly, making him light-headed as he trotted back, trying to retrace his steps. He went for close on half another hour checking stone after stone. But he was utterly lost and had let go of his very last hope_. Of all ends, you deserve the worst, Samwise. Why did you think you should leave him? Why? Had you not learned your lesson the first time?_

But Sam's scolding died in his head at the sound of drums beating deep below him. There were shouts of orcs and the running of many feet echoing through the stones both above and below. Something had stirred them to riot and Sam had a terrible idea of what that could very well be. He drew Sting and ran toward the turns that would bring him closer to their noisy swarm.

Horns blew in many pitches, commingling into a dissonance that pounded Sam's ears. He was close on a troop of them now, their torches glowing red along the stone corridor just ahead. He lagged behind them, following their lead until at last he came to the six arches and there found his mark. As he predicted, the orcs had turned down the marked passage and Sam followed them. Around and about the dungeon maze they went, but it was not as far to the centre as the way Sam had first found. The orcs were more acquainted with the turns. Soon, Sam knew they were not far from the square room just outside their cell.

Sam stopped at the final turn and pulled the cloak about him, keeping low. Peering around the corner, he saw their cell far at the end, and dark dread filled him. The cell door was open and orcs were swarming in and out of it. The orc he had felled lay out on the floor, kicked about and stripped for clues. The orcs were shouting and much pushing and flashing of knives could be seen--each trying to blame the other for his escape. There were so many foul creatures about, Sam could not spy Frodo among them. 

Sam strained to catch any useful words in their growling chatter. He heard "chained the rat" and "dragged off" among the curses and hissing. The realisation struck like a spear in Sam's chest: they'd already taken Frodo away. But where? Before Sam could wonder about what to do, he heard another crew of orcs approaching up the corridor behind him. The space was narrow here, and too well lit for Sam to hide. White panic rose in him faster than any hard words he might give himself, when the voice returned to him: _the rings, use the rings!_

Rings? Bless him, he'd forgotten. Without giving much thought to what they might be for or what they might do, Sam jammed his hand in the pocket of the tunic and fiddled around until all three were slipped on separate fingers. Many things happened at once. Sam was first aware that when he held up his hand to examine the placement of the rings, he could not see it. Secondly, his vision swam with faint images layered one upon another in confusion. He saw cliffs and plains and forests and armies and darkness and fire altogether as the troop of orcs ran past him, a blur of arms and legs and leather boots. Sam staggered back so they would not trip over him in their haste. He pressed his back to the wall, feeling a jolt of thrilling power rush into his wasted limbs. The thirst that had plagued him for days eased out of knowledge. His mind grew sharp and clear, renewed with determination. _I can find him. I will. _Sam Gamgee was master of three Rings of Power, armed with an Elven sword in the Dark Tower of Mordor, and no one was going to stop him from reclaiming his master, not a thousand orcs or more.

IV

Sam took a moment to blink the confused ring images from his sight. He discovered that he could ignore the sundry visions if he turned his mind from them and set about taking charge of the situation. A small snivelling orc, who had been given a nasty cut from a punch in the teeth, stumbled back from the fray. Sam leapt upon it and soon had its arm pinned to its back, Sting at its throat. The orc thrashed and spit at the air, screeching.

Sam pressed the glowing blade against its hide. Sting, the orc could see, but the rest of Sam was invisible to mortal eyes. "I am the ghost of an elf warrior killed by your kind. I haunt this dungeon. You'll listen to me or else lose your head."

"Yes, yes," the frightened orc gasped. 

"Tell me where they've taken the little elf prisoner, my kin."

"The prisoner? He's gone to the Round Room. They carried him off."

"When?"

"Some time ago!"

"You take me to him!" Sam snarled into the hairy pointed ear. "I'll let you go, but if you stray more'n a step, I'll clean your shoulders of your filthy head."

The orc whimpered and shook, truly frightened. Sam loosened his grip on the orc's arm, keeping Sting tight in his grasp. To the orc, Sam appeared no more than a floating blue blade. 

"Go on!" Sam snapped. "Show me."

The orc began to slink along the wall toward the commotion in the cell room. "No! Not that way!" Sam growled, yanking the creature back by its long arm. "Another way. A secret way. You'll know of one, I'll bet."

The orc shuddered, its yellow eyes bright with fear. It slobbered and choked, "Yes, yes. I know which way. Don't hurt me!"

Sam kept Sting's glow near the creature's head as it turned about and made for the passage he'd come up from. The orc led Sam through the turns of the maze until they came to a storage room. Inside were straw bales, barrels, rags and a cistern of stagnant black water. Chains and restraints of various kinds hung on hooks along the walls. The orc lurched to the end of the room where a cabinet was built into the stones. It opened the doors to reveal a dark shaft with two thick long chains dropping away into blackness. The orc reached in with a long bony arm and yanked a wire. A shudder sounded from within and Sam feared the beast had summoned an alarm.

"Hi, what are you about? I said no trickery!"

The orc raised its hands as Sam nudged it between the shoulder blades with Sting. "It's a way. Another way down to the lower chambers. You asked that I show you a secret way!" it pleaded, cowering before the bluish gleam. "I have to call the box. Ow!"

A wooden box soon appeared, brought to their level from somewhere above on the grinding chains. Sam had never seen the likes of it. It was small. No more than four foot square. It waited for them.

"What is this?" Sam demanded, swishing Sting about.

"It's the supply lift! It will take us down!"

"Down where?"

"The Round Room!"

"Fine, then," Sam said. "Get in."

"Get in?" the creature moaned. 

"Aye, and I'll be close." He pointed the sword at the orc's eye. "No mischief now."

"None, none!" it pleaded, backing into the tight space.

Sam shoved it to the wall with his shoulder as he squeezed in after. If the orc knew Sam held a physical shape, it made no attempt to touch him and remained cowered as far back as it could in the box, shaking.

"Well, get us going!" Sam snarled. "I haven't all day."

The orc reached for an iron rod in the side of the box. It cranked the rod downwards and the lift shook to life. With a groan of long chains, they began to descend.

Sam remained crouched and tense, ready to spring in the tight space if the orc felt a rush of bravery and tried to jump him. But the creature did not prove to be any trouble and kept its stringy head low, snivelling at its long dirty toes. 

Sounds echoed through the shaft as they continued to descend for many long minutes. It was clear to Sam's ears that they had left the quieter levels of the Tower and were dropping through chambers of greater activity and occupation. Screams, shouts of beasts large and small, and clanging and groaning of distant massive machines and huffing furnaces rattled the box. Sam got an occasional glimpse through the open side of passing floors: torch-lit halls, workshops and quarters filled with the shadows of busy orcs bent over their tasks. None took particular notice of the running lift as it rumbled on ever lower. 

The box grew hot. The whole of the Tower was warm, but as they descended, the sweltering air grew even more unbearable. Sam felt sweat spill out of every pore; rivulets ran down his chest and legs, pooling at his feet. His chest struggled, begging for one breath of cool air. _How do beasts live in this place? It's like being inside a stone oven all your life._

When Sam thought he couldn't stand the cramped heat another minute, the orc next to him lifted its scaly head and yanked the iron bar up sharply, grinding the long chains to a stop. They were behind a new set of closed cabinet doors; only a slit of light passed through, orange and bright. Without came the screams of many souls in agony, terrible to hear. 

"What is this place?" Sam said in dismay.

"The Round Room!" the orc whined. "You asked to come here!"

"I did," Sam said, leaning to peer through the crack. Many orcs marched about bearing long poles mounted with hooks and barbs. Beyond them and between them, Sam saw many forms of naked whipped flesh: prisoners. "Open it!" Sam ordered, nudging the back of the creature's skull with the flat of the blade.

The orc shuffled forward and pushed open the doors. Sam gasped at the sheer size of the cavern before him. It was a great hollow room, many hundred feet across and over a hundred feet high. Perfectly round it was to Sam, like the inside of an overturned bowl--a bowl made of smooth black rock carved by volcanic belchings thousands of years old. This was a place buried deep in the mountainside. The cut black stone floor of the space was occupied with instruments and mechanisms of torture, the uses of which Sam could never have imagined were they not before his own eyes. Greasy timber constructions mounted with iron bars, wheels and spikes stood side by side with garrotte poles, stocks and narrow cages. Iron bands and chains hung like tentacles along the circular walls. At the chamber's centre was a great glowing pit, thirty feet across, simmering and rippling with hot red light. 

There was so much activity, a hundred orcs or more and twice as many prisoners, Sam could hardly understand what he was seeing all at once and remained still, all too aware of the endless chorus of screams upon screams of men and elves captured here in this very heart of hell. _Oh, that I would live to see this…but I must. If I have to look into the face of every prisoner until I find him, I must. So swallow your heart, Sam, and step out._

Sam slid down from his cramped hideaway to stand on numbed feet. The orc who had delivered him stayed in the box. As soon as the orc was certain the blue glow had passed, it slammed the cabinet shut and cranked the lift up and away. But Sam was only half aware of this as he concealed Sting in the folds of his cloak and searched for his reflection in the shimmering glare of a fallen polished shield. There was nothing to see. He was hidden as long as the blade was covered. He stepped forward along the curving path past the constructions, careful not to stumble into an orc on his invisible legs. 

The horrors Sam witnessed as he darted and slipped along the blood-stained stones would be certain to haunt his dreams. Prisoners, stripped bare as he and Frodo had been, were being led about shackled with chains at their wrists and ankles. Most were linked into gangs with fellow soldiers; others were led alone on long poles with iron collars fastened about their necks. They were being organised into long lines of standing victims awaiting their torments on the racks and ravaging machines. Sam wished he did not have to look into their eyes. Too many of them reminded him of Aragorn or Legolas, tall and proud. Many screamed in terror and others, mostly the elves, stood calm and still, heads held high as they bravely faced their fates. Many were wounded and bleeding, some begging for water; others hung limp in their bindings, dragged along amidst the trudging feet of their comrades.

Sam did not want to see how some where strapped into chairs of iron nails, or locked into banded masks, spikes of steel forced into their mouths. He did not want to look at the ones who were hung by their legs from horizontal poles and slowly sawn in half by masked orcs with long two-handled saws, nor the ones who were forced to sit upon pyramid pinnacles, or lowered by pulleys--ankles forced apart--onto heated spikes, or those straining against long angled boards sliding and tightening the garrottes twisted about their throats. Sam had never known or guessed such things could exist, that some fell mind had called upon craftsmen to build such machines, or that such terrible constructions were being used, day and night, without rest. Fires burned every few feet with glowing coals to heat the ends of iron poles and claws for the burning and tearing of skin and sinew. The stench of cooking hair and flesh filled the room and Sam had to breathe through his mouth to keep from retching.

Sam did not want to look, but he did. It was in this place that he had to find the dearest person in the world to him, even if it tore his soul apart in the searching. Sam hoped he had arrived ahead of the orcs who held Frodo captive, perhaps still marching down the long passages and stairwells to this place. He looked about for entries or doors, but none could be seen. The walls were smooth and seamless. Sam's fears deepened when he passed by the many stations of torture and came to the stone lip of the great pit; for here he saw how the prisoners were brought in.

There was a black crack near the apex of the cavern roof. It was so high above Sam's head it looked very small at first like a rat hole in a barn. As he watched, the glow of the molten pit flashed against something shiny lowering steadily on long black chains ever downwards from the opening. As it drew closer Sam could see it was a great iron cage, packed back to chest with prisoners, pressed tightly together, limbs flailing from the bars as it descended.

As the cage neared the pit, orcs swung out hooked poles and caught the bars, pulling the cage in and onto a platform enclosed within three high walls, open on the side that faced the lip of the pit. The cage clanged and echoed as it came to rest on the stones. The padlocked door was soon manned by a line of orcs who unlocked and opened it, mercilessly pulling the chained prisoners out onto the platform within the shadows of the three walls, cracking bones and strangling necks should any two or several have the misfortune to become entangled in the journey down. 

The chained men and elves were marched past a tall armoured man wearing a bright red cloak. He sorted the prisoners this way and that with shouts in a harsh language Sam could not understand. Some were separated from the crowd and led out through a barred door in one of the walls to the torture ring, while others were made to wait near the edge of the pit. Once sorted, the orcs slipped out through the iron door, locking the prisoners left behind them on the platform. Then the cage was raised and hoisted back upwards towards the roof hole, empty.

Sam did not at first understand why these prisoners had not been led away to torment. But the answer came soon enough when he heard the lashing of whips and the low grunts of a large beast. Two great mountain trolls rose to their feet from the shadows, clamped in irons and chains. Urged on by their wardens with long pointed poles, the trolls set their shoulders upon the rearmost wall and slowly shoved it forward, narrowing the platform. The prisoners screamed and cursed, throwing themselves against the moving wall as their space narrowed. Foot by foot the wall grinded forward until their clinging mass could no longer fit upon the shrinking stones. The first prisoners soon slipped over the lip of the pit and hung by their chains over the fire. More and more fell, unbalancing the weight, until the ones left standing lost their footholds and all fell together down into the depths of burning rock, liquefied in a leaping flash. 

Sam witnessed this all from where he stood, invisible, on the opposite side of the pit. He now understood why the upper dungeons were bare. Prisoners who mercifully succumbed to their tortures were likewise unlocked and collected in hand carts pushed by orcs who dumped them into the seething pit. 

Sam swallowed his revulsion and forced his legs to move again, back to the racks and poles, shutting his mind against the horrors about him. Now that he knew how prisoners were brought in he could check and check again that he had not missed Frodo among the rest. 

Sam circuited the whole of the cavern twice, eyeing every post, chain and shackle. Time was passing and still his master had not arrived. It struck Sam cold that perhaps the orc that had brought him here had been mistaken and Frodo had been taken to some other location where he was being tormented in private. Or even worse, mixed up in the chains and pulled by mistake into the pit. This sent a trembling into Sam so hard he didn't realise that Sting had come loose from the folds of the cloak and was glowing brightly at his side.

"Spits and nails! What's that glowing?" growled an orc, leading a line of prisoners.

"What glowing?" another orc replied, bringing up the end. Sam pulled up the blade and tucked it under his arm to conceal it. He backed slowly away from the orcs who had stopped their quarry to search the stifling air for another sign.

"It's these elves. Aarck! They're full of sneaky tricks. Keep 'em moving! Don't look for it!"

Sam backed slowly away and in his haze of dread and fear came up short against a timber base, rattling the chains of the strangled captive swinging blue above him. _Oh, dear Master. How am I to save you from this place? Would I were a real elf or wizard so I might set a spell to find you. _No sooner had Sam thought these words when he moved his fingers together to feel the presence of the three rings on his left hand. Sam was reminded of the images he'd seen in his mind's eye when he first put them on and now called upon them, asking if by some ill-understood magic he might be shown his master's face. Images gathered before his vision, layered over layer and confused. Most of them were of soaring over battle plains and tree tops or mountain crags. He thought he could see the world's winds blowing. _Master, where are you? _

Then Sam was shown a vision he recognised. He shut his eyes, willing his mind to focus on it. It was of the great pit in the centre of the room as seen from some height. _Up! Look up! _He opened his eyes, tilting his head to scan the high walls. Above and behind him some ways off hung a small barred cage. If Sam were to look from its interior he would have seen the fire pit from its advantage. _Up there? _he thought. _Is my master in that cage?_

Abandoning the idea that he had arrived ahead of Frodo, Sam made his way past the tortured souls back to the far curve of the wall where this single cage hung some eight feet from the ground. The small square prison was hoisted on a bar and pulley that stood out from the wall and was tied by a thick rope to an iron rung in the floor. A pair of muscular orcs stood below the shadow of the cage, scimitars drawn. They were guarding something held aloft within those black bars. 

Sam tiptoed around them at a fair distance, trying to catch a glimpse of a foot or hand above. But he could see nothing but an old arm bone caught in the bars of the padlocked door. How was he to climb up and see? Sam wanted to call out but could not be sure, even if Frodo were inside, that his call would be heard and answered.

Sam crept about and watched the guards. They did not speak to one another nor did they stray from their vigilant watch. The only thing they did not watch closely was the rung behind them, where the rope was tied fast. The rope. If Sam could climb it and swing out, at least he would know if Frodo was held here. 

Sam took the chance and carefully sheathed Sting in order to free his hands. He gave the orcs a wide berth and came around behind them along the cavern wall. There he took the rope in his hands, getting a feel for it. It was of a good sturdy weave and fibre, easy to grip. Sam might not have been the truest at descending a cliff face by rope, but he could climb one at need.

He took the rope in both hands, and bracing one foot against the wall, began to haul himself up. The distance was not far, but it took some time to climb it stealthily. His weight on the rope sent the cage swinging after a few pulls and he had to pause to let the line calm. Were it not for the power of the rings he wore, Sam would not have had the strength to hold still for so long between efforts. All the while he watched the backs of the orc's heads to see if they'd notice the strange tremble on the rope. They didn't. Sam made the height of the rope and gripped the suspension bar, wrapping his legs around it from underneath. He inched along upside down until he was over the top of the cage. There he swung his legs down, landing a little noisily on the flat roof. 

The orcs heard the sound and one of them looked up and grimaced at the shaking cage. Sam held very still until both the orc and the cage settled down. He lay flat on his belly and dipped his head over the roof's edge to peer into the cell. Bless the Lady! The vision was true. Frodo lay inside, curled up against the remains of something long dead and turned to scraps of rag and bone.

"Mr. Frodo?" Sam whispered, hoping Frodo could hear him. "It's Sam. I've come back!"

Frodo did not move. Sam could not tell in the dim light if he breathed or not, though his skin still held the same pallid tone Sam remembered when he'd last left his side. _Of course he's alive. The orcs know it's their heads if he ain't!_

Sam lay there some moments debating his situation. First he had to get inside, then he had to find a way to get himself and Frodo out. He thought he could make for the lift which had brought him here. The cabinet was not terribly far from where they now hung. He knew he would have to move slowly and quietly until the last possible moment not to be detected. 

Sam wriggled across the roof until he could hang his head over the door. The cage was not deep, so he was able to grasp the heavy padlock and haul it up along the bars to rest against the roof. Sam tried to jiggle and jam it about with his invisible hands, but the longer he held the lock, the more it drew from the power of the rings Sam wore and soon faded and vanished; an unnerving and difficult problem. Either way, the lock was solid and true. Sam wondered if he could strike it in two with Sting, though that would create much noise and a flash of light. He reached for his belt to attempt it when his fingers rattled the invisible chain of keys he'd been carrying since leaving the dungeon. _Well, if you're not the worst of the addle-headed numskulls. Keys, Samwise! And careful that you don't drop them with your not-all-here hands. _

Sam unbuckled the belt and slipped the key ring off and onto his wrist by feel. But try as he might, he could not fumble about invisibly for their shapes and proper ends to fit in the lock. He'd have to take off the rings. Sam scooted back from the roof's edge and slipped the first ring off his index finger. Immediately, he could discern the dim edges of himself. Just enough to see the keys and the lock he was set upon opening. 

Sam slipped the extra ring in his pocket and slunk forward, the cloak hood over his head, to try to free the lock. The padlock was old and stiff and would not take just any key. Sam tried the lot of them, one after another, until a slim copper key slid in fairly well and wedged against the tongue, just moving it. Sam tried to force it, and the lock jammed, trapping the key fast. He struggled with the end but could not get it to budge. Sam felt about in his pockets and belts for something he could use. The iron ball he'd lifted from the armoury drew his attention and he pulled it out, weighing it in his hand.

Sam slid the elven cloak past his shoulder and onto the metal roof. He angled the lock against it and, raising the projectile over his head, gave the key a sharp hit. The impact was muffled by the cloth, but made a sound nevertheless. He peered below, but the orcs did not look up. Sam wiggled the key and noticed it had given some, so he lifted his arm and struck again. The lock made a clicking noise and released, but the key broke in half, falling over the edge and striking the ground with a bright 'ting!' Sam pressed flat against the cell roof and held his breath. 

One of the orcs turned its head at the sound of the fallen key but didn't bother to investigate. Instead, it raised its scimitar and pounded it into the base of the cage, shaking Sam's perch. 

"Quiet up there! We'll have none of your antics! Hear me?"

Sam's blood pounded in his ears, but he lay still until the groaning metal under him stilled. The orc relaxed its grip on the weapon, as it turned to say something to the orc next to it in a strange tongue.

Moving as quickly as he dared, Sam unhooked the padlock from the bars and leaned over to inspect the door hinges. They were rusted and caked with black soot. They looked to make quite a noise upon opening. Sam couldn't take the chance. He watched the orcs below and decided what was best would be to create a diversion. Sam gripped the projectile in his hand and waited until a team of orcs leading more prisoners began to march past the cage guards. Then, Sam took aim and threw, knocking the bigger of the two orcs off its feet.

The orc fell heavily into the line of prisoners, tangling their bindings and tripping one of the chain gang leaders. An angry scuffle soon broke out between the two orders of orcs, each snarling at the others about who fell onto whom first. "Drunken snakes! Keep your hairy legs and arms to yourselves, we've orders to fill!"

Sam reached down and threw open the cage door with a screech. He swung himself down and in, drawing the door closed after him. He peered out fearfully, but the guards were too busy fighting amongst their own kind to notice any goings on overhead. Forgetting them now, Sam crawled to Frodo who lay with his bare arm around a partial corpse upon the flooring. Sam pushed the bones aside and lifted his master up and hugged him close in relief, a sob seizing his throat. Frodo lay limp, but air escaped his lungs in a faint sigh as Sam crushed him to his chest. 

"It's Sam, dear master. It's Sam. I've come back for you," he wept, holding him, clutching his hair. Sam's tears fell on Frodo's skin as he pressed his lips to the pale cheek and forehead, for the moment lost in the simple happiness of finding his master alive after such a dire search.

When he could stand to loosen his hold on Frodo some, Sam lowered him into his lap. His master's chin and chest were red and bruised as if he'd been dragged for a distance. A new brown stain ran from his lips to his neck as if they'd forced him to drink once again. Sam felt a rage rise in him. How he wanted to find them, each and every foul hand that had brought hurt to this fairest and gentlest of hobbits. He'd find them and they'd know what a hobbit was made of. But vengeance could not be served on this day. Sam had a more urgent task at hand, getting Frodo down and away. He knew it would be easier if Frodo could stand on his own. 

Sam stroked his master's matted hair back from his brow and began to plead. "Please wake up, Mr. Frodo. Please wake up. I need your help." He warmed the pale cheeks with strokes of love and patience until Frodo's eyes stirred behind their lids and fluttered open. "I need you to get up now. We can't rest here. Not yet," Sam said, smiling in relief. But that smile soon faded when he saw the fear gathering in those lost eyes. 

"Mr. Frodo, don't be frightened. It's Sam!" Frodo lifted a trembling hand in a feeble attempt to shield himself from Sam's touch. 

"Oh! Mr. Frodo, wait! I forgot. I'm wearing the rings." Sam wiggled each of the remaining two off his fingers and into the base of the pocket. "I'm sorry. I forgot you can't see me very well!"

Frodo lowered his hand slowly and blinked. He turned his head to look at the bones lying on the floor, then back at Sam. A trembling came over Frodo and he made a little sound, his weak hand reaching for Sam's face. Sam took that hand and pressed it to his cheek. 

"I'm not a ghost, Mr. Frodo. Those aren't my bones. Your Sam is warm and alive," he said sadly, gathering Frodo close. He murmured kind words to him until Frodo relaxed against his chest and closed his eyes, safe again. Sam wiped the tears from his cheeks on the tunic sleeve. He had to find a way to get them both down unseen. But it was certain to Sam from Frodo's state that it would be in his arms, or not at all.

"How am I to get you away from this terrible place?" Sam whispered. "There's so many of them, and so few of me. I made some poor decisions this day. And leaving you behind was the worst of them. I promise I won't let you go from my sight again. Not for a second. But give your Sam a moment to think and he'll find a way to get his feet back on the floor."

Sam sat in the gloom, holding Frodo, and tried to think as clear as he could. With the rings off his fingers, his body was feeling every inch of his exhaustion; his throat was dry and desperate for a swallow of anything wet. He'd have to put the rings back on to get them away from here, but that would terrify Frodo who could not understand. But would Frodo disappear too, if Sam but held him while he wore the rings? As the padlock had done until he let it go? He would try it now to see, for it appeared Frodo had fallen into a swoon once again. 

Sam dug in the pocket and donned all three rings once more. He held Frodo with both hands spread upon his skin. Frodo began to fade, but only slightly. His form was still apparent. Perhaps he and Frodo were too big and the rings' power too weak to conceal them both. At any rate, Frodo was not faded enough to fool the hundreds of orcs swarming about the place for long. Then Sam got another idea; he took off one of the rings and placed it on one of Frodo's fingers, leaving himself two. Frodo faded a little further, but Sam now bore a pale outline of himself. Perhaps this was the best they could do. 

Sam unclasped the cloak from around his neck and wrapped Frodo in it. He took off the orc belt and cinched the cloak closed around his master's wasted body. He hoped it would hide Frodo a touch better and comfort him as well. Then Sam moved the orc knife scabbard to Sting's belt along with the keys. Frodo stirred again and opened his faded eyes. Sam was glad to realise that Frodo could see him better with the ring on, and was not afraid of his dim shape. Sam tore his gaze from those needful eyes and looked to the pile of bones and rags he had kicked aside. He took the dwarf ring off Frodo and placed it back on his own finger, vanishing once again.

"Don't worry, Mr. Frodo. Your Sam's got a plan."

V

The orc wiped the back of its sore head and licked the blood from its long fingers. It knew it had not lost its footing. Something had been thrown at it, from above most like. The felled orc knocked a smaller grunt out of its way as it got to its feet, stumbling out of the chains and tripped legs. Ignoring the angry shouts of its comrades, the orc walked away to pace steadily under the shadow of the cage. If the orc was not mistaken, it looked as if the cage was dragging harder at the pulley bar, as if the weight within had increased. The cage was shifting slightly, too. And from last looks the prisoner had not been up to rolling about. The orc went over to the rope tie-off and unknotted it, lowering the cage for a look. 

"Boils and Blood! Have you lost your head? You're not to lower that cage!" the orc's fellow guardsman shouted, kicking away from the squabble. "This elf-creature is special. We're not to meddle with it!"

The orc's comrade raised its scimitar over its head to stop the descent of the cell. But it soon became distracted by the opening of the iron door and the fleeting glimpse of something small and round leaping down into the shadows beyond them. 

"Ai! The elf has jumped!"

"Prisoner has escaped!" the orcs began to shout. "Prisoner has escaped! Sound the alarm!"

A blare of horns went up, echoing off the round walls as the orc's comrade and several others made for the direction of the leaping shape. But this orc, head smarting from its recent blow, smelled some warning in its black snout, it would not be fooled twice. 

The orc held the cage until it hovered a few feet from the floor and tied it off. Something was still in it, sprawled on the floor, but it was in shadow and hard to see. The orc also noticed that the corpse that once shared this space had taken a little flight out the open door on its own. "Where are you, stink? I'm not so blind to elf magic! Show yourself!" 

The orc closed the heavy door and held it shut while it grasped the bars and shook the cage, tilting towards the torchlight for a better look. Inside lay the prisoner it had locked in this cage over an hour before, lying flat. Except it now appeared to be wearing something grey and difficult to see if not looked upon directly.

"Got dressed all by yerself, did ye?" The orc shook the bars again. "Get up!" 

The prisoner raised an arm and pawed at the floor as if to move, but collapsed and stilled once again. "Garn, what a wasted little rat ye be…aaaagh!" The orc screamed for in a flash of blue, it looked down to find the claws of its left hand had dropped to its boots, shorn clean off. The iron door swung out with such a force it knocked the orc backwards. In a confusion of vision, the orc saw a blue light lift the little prisoner up and float it right out the door in a leap to the floor. The orc growled and got to its feet, grabbing its scimitar in its still-clawed hand and raced after the floating shape as it weaved into the crowds of bodies and machines glutting the place.

"Outta my way! Outta my way! This little elf is mine!" The orc growled, shoving prisoners and orcs about with its shoulders, leaving a trail of blood on them and the stones. It soon lost the fleeting shape in the congested gloom, but the startled cries of guards and executioners could still be heard as the floating elf veered through them.

"Elf magic!" the orc shouted, splattering blood as it pointed with its maimed hand. "The rat's got elf magic! You scabs! Look for him!" 

There were too many faces and arms and legs to trip and shove away for the orc to keep the blue light in its sight. It was soon knocked to the floor by an angry comrade swinging a long pole at the orc's knees. From the stones, the bleeding orc saw an odd sight off in the shadows under a platform. The little elf slumped against something that was not there, but which lifted the elf's hand and chose a finger, slipping something silver upon it. And with that gesture the little elf faded into the blackness in the shadows, passing from the orc's sight.

***

Sam held Frodo to him under the slatted planking of a gallows now rumbling with the armour-clad feet of many orcs. His breath was short and laboured and his arms shook from his efforts. Without the third ring, Sam's weakness had returned and he had to catch his breath before he dared to make for the nearby cabinet and shaft. Frodo was not heavy, but he took an arm to hold over his shoulder, and that left Sam with very little balance to swing a sword at need. He'd have to get them out by dash and dive, or not at all. If he stuck to the shadows they might not be easily seen, but the orcs he'd stumbled and darted between to cross to this hiding place had taken notice of them, even if they could not quite trust their eyes nor follow their small shape very well.

With the whole of the place up in alarm, Sam knew he'd have to make a frantic run to the cabinet, leap in, and hope for the best. _But what are you going to find in that shaft, Samwise? A coach at the ready? That little weasel you rode up with took off once you stepped out of the box. Don't be thinking he's sent the carrier back to you out o' courtesy._ No, Sam knew he would have to call the lift and then wait. Who knew how long that wait would be or if they would be spotted. The cabinet wall stood out from the main curve of the cavern, but it didn't cast many shadows and there was hardly another plank or strip of iron between here and there. He would have to trust to luck if luck could survive in a place like this.

Sam crawled out from under the platform and pulled Frodo after him. He got them both up, Frodo over his shoulder, and ran. He nearly collided with a tall orc who veered across his path. Sam held up sharp and the creature gave him hardly a confused glance as Sam dived for the meagre shadow of the wall. Setting Frodo down a moment, he slid the cabinet doors wide. He passed a frantic hand along the inside walls, feeling about for a call lever. There wasn't one. He glanced quickly behind him to see if he'd been noticed, then stuck his head all the way in, looking this way and that. Above his head hung a long curled wire and Sam took it in his fist and tugged at it until he heard a click. The shaft groaned and the chains rattled. He listened. Far above, he could just make out the creak of the box. How long it would take to descend, he had no idea.

Sam slipped away from the cabinet and sank as far back into the shadow as he could, gathering Frodo's faint form to him and asking the White Lady of Lothlórien away in her magical wood to have a care for them, and hurry that box right down.

In his arms Frodo lay still, his faded eyes open, their gaze resting peacefully upon Sam's face. Frodo had woken up the moment Sam put the dwarf ring on him and seemed to be more alert ever since. Sam noticed how his eyes would now focus on objects beyond them, his dark brows knit in confusion. Perhaps Frodo was seeing some of those ring visions, too. Either way, Sam was glad that Frodo seemed to understand so little about what was happening around them and was not afraid as long as Sam held him. 

"It will be all right," Sam whispered, not daring to look away from the fray for very long. His small hobbit's voice was drowned in the blaring of horns and running of feet, but he hoped Frodo would understand what he said all the same. "I promise, I'll keep you safe. Don't let go no matter what. I don't know how long we've got, nor if these rings are calling straight to the Dark Lord himself; but I've got to try."

A shadow passed over Frodo's cheekbone and Sam looked up sharply. The bleeding orc stood not a yard away, swinging its scimitar back and forth, its yellow eyes blinking and staring hard into their slip of shadow. Sam stood quickly and gathered Frodo up on his shoulder and moved his free hand to the sword hilt. He would not draw it unless the orc's eyes focused on something certain.

"Where are you, little rats? I can see you. I can see you." In truth, the orc could not see them. Not clearly, but for the tail of its eye which had caught a movement and knew somewhere in this space the little elves had cloaked themselves in magic. "Why you huddled in this corner, eh? The lift, is it? It's not supposed to run at this hour. Not to this level. Waiting for a ride, are we?"

The orc tore its piercing eyes from the corner and moved over to the cabinet. It slipped its head and shoulders in, black blood dripping onto the cabinet doors. It moved its head out of the shaft and made for a coal brazier, selecting a long red-hot claw and pole from the assortment. 

Seeing this, Sam moved slowly away from the lift wall and out towards the pathway, looking in all directions for some sign of recognition from any of the monsters surrounding them. He watched in dread as the orc took that claw and forced the glowing end of it into the shaft, rattling the chains until it caught, snapping the long pole from its hand and up into the darkness. There was a loud shriek and grinding of distant gears as the shaft groaned and the lift came to a slow shuddering stop. 

"No!" Sam shouted in disbelief and fury. That was his plan, his only plan! Why hadn't the Lady heard him? The Round Room had no doors or windows. Nothing. They were trapped and Sam knew it was only a matter of time before the evil closed in on them. His shout had turned many orc heads, so Sam held fast to Frodo and ran desperately the other way. 

_Go! But carefully! _Sam told his legs as he ran and dodged his burdened way around the curve of the room, circling the pit of fire. Two things crossed Sam's mind: they could die quickly or they could die slowly. The choice was his and he would have to make it swiftly.

_If they get close, you jump, Samwise. You jump fast and no arguing about it. He'll go with you and that's the hardest. You'll have no breath for goodbyes. _But as Sam fled and heard the feet of the orcs lumbering behind him, shouting and cursing others to follow the small shadow, he could not turn fully to his right and make that final step. Somehow his feet would veer and dodge about a pillory or rack and he'd be a few feet inwards again, though still further around the circle.

Sweat dripped steady in his eyes and his heart rammed his ribs like it might escape on its own. Sam's instinct to run and hide was so strong it overrode his own decisive purpose. Before Sam Gamgee could question the sense of it, he found himself ploughing his near-invisible body into and through the legs of a line of confused and cursing orcs exiting an iron door: a door that was built into a high wall--one of three--and there was a fresh platform of prisoners between them all. Sam dived through the standing mass of naked bodies and fell onto the stones, Frodo atop him, as the iron door shut and locked. 

Maybe Sam had thought to jump from this place or wait with the prisoners until the choice was no longer his. But no matter; he was here at the very edge of death and the whips of the troll-drivers were snapping in the air as the wall behind their wretched souls began to tremble. The men shouted and screamed, chained together, while the elves began their solemn chants of death. 

The cage that lowered the prisoners to this precipice was still settled upon the platform. The order to retract the cell from above had been lost in the raucous confusion of the Round Room's alarms. The orcs that had followed them from the lift now came upon the barred door, demanding it be opened that they might hunt and retrieve the 'little elves' before the moving wall assigned their deaths.

The tall man with the polished armour and red cloak, whom Sam had seen earlier determining prisoner's fates, stood at the outside of the iron door and drew his long sword, challenging the bleeding orc and its comrades. 

"If you let those elf-rats fall, you'll soon be next!" shouted the maimed orc.

"By whose orders?"

"By his Lordship's fury, you pox!"

"I've not heard of such orders. All elves are to burn or be defleshed. That is the law!"

"These are not like other elves! They're smaller, trickier! They stole his Lordship's Ring!"

More arguing and flashing of blades ensued, but Sam paid them little mind as he got to his feet, Frodo in his arms, and whirled about, trying to find a solution even at the last. The chained men and elves grew more frightened as they saw the wall begin to advance. They pulled and fought their bindings, rushing the wall and throwing their combined and futile weight upon it as Sam had seen the helpless prisoners do earlier. 

But Sam knew something they didn't. The cage still sat on the platform. It was locked, but he knew it would likely rise soon. Frodo over his shoulder, Sam made for it until he faced the barred door, bound and locked by a heavy chain. Laying Frodo at his feet, Sam drew Sting and called upon the blessings of the Lady once more to make the Elven-blade true as he smote the chain in one hammering blow. Blue light and red sparks caught the air, but the chain fell apart, the lock clanging to the stones. Sam hurled the door open and dragged Frodo in after him and pressed them both to the centre of the floor in order to hide as best as they could.

The flash of light from Sting's unveiled blade caught the notice of some of the prisoners and they shouted in their sundry languages to turn about and make for the cage. But there was too much noise and panic for many to hear or realise the cage was now unlocked. 

"Stop the wall! Stop the wall!" came a harsh cry from the other side of the stones. The helmed man was shouting to the troll drivers. But the beasts were too well trained and once they hurled their weight against the wall and started it in motion, they knew no reason to stop. The lashings and driving of metal poles only spurred them on, for no orc had ever in their lifetimes called the wall to halt once they begun. In the event a guard had been left inside, it went over with the rest, no loss to any who served in Barad-dûr.

A call went out for hooks and rope to scale the walls, while more orcs tried to force the iron door to open, but it was already blocked by the leading edge of the wall as it slowly advanced. 

A handful of chained elves, who had seen Sting's flare and took it for a sign of good, were slowly making their tangled way towards the cage, dragging the panicked others along at the limits of their shackles. The leader was just able to grasp the bars of the door; it swung open in his fair bloodied hands. 

From inside the cage, Sam watched the elf in indecision, one hand on Frodo's cloak, the other on the sword, ready to fight if an orc cleared that wall. He wanted to free the elves, all of them, but that would mean letting go of Frodo and the cage was now beginning to shift and grind along the floor as its baffled operators high overhead signalled the chains to retract. Their unexpected weight in what should have been an empty hoist, was pitching the barred box sideways. Sam had to scramble to keep them from falling and sliding out through the bars meant to hold larger prey.

The lead elf gripped his way, hand over hand, until he could lift a chained leg up and into the cage, his weight causing it to tip and swing, jarring against the stones in sparks. Sam danced about, trying to rebalance the weight, but his size was no match for a tethered elf who was dragging the bodies of his friends behind him as the cage rose. 

More prisoners saw that the cage was open and rising and ran for it, crawling and climbing over one another until the side of the cage tipped down under the added weight and crashed into the stones. Sam fell hard and he and Frodo rolled across the flooring, coming up longways against the bars. The elf still clung, but behind him, his friends had begun to reach the limits of the disappearing platform and a few fell over the edge, dragging them one after another into the throat of the pit. 

Sam held fast to Frodo and crawled along the edge of the bars until he came close to the clinging elf. If he freed this one, he thought, then the rest would fall and they would be righted. _At least I'll save one, just one!_

Wedged between the ever-tipping bars and the floor, Sam gripped Frodo's hood in one hand, and drew Sting in the other. With a strength Sam didn't know he possessed, he swung its biting blade through the chains that bound the elf to the shackle line. Like a snapped rope, the elf and cage released, rocking violently back into place and sending them all tumbling about its interior. Sam scrambled and held on to Frodo, who was sliding, sprawled across the floor next to him. Sam braced his feet and caught them both mid-slide, coming to rest in the centre again. 

The elf did not fare so well and hung by a hand to the edge of the open door, swinging out over the fire. The cage, now rebalanced, no longer met the stones and swung out wide on its iron leash over the horrible heat of the open pit. Sam could feel the iron under his belly begin to warm. He stood shakily and lifted Frodo off of it and over his shoulder. The elf clung long enough to see his brethren fall one after the other into the liquid wrath below, until overwhelmed by the sight and heat, he looked once to Sam and smiled. _Elbereth! _he cried, and let go and fell.

VI

The iron flooring was still painfully warm when the cage slowed its ascent to pass through the crack in the cavern roof. Sam knelt on the floor and sat as still as possible, Frodo tucked against him, knowing his toes and knees had not received their final burns atop the dread mountain. Their surroundings dimmed as they were hauled up through a narrow passage and into a small bay of rock. A team of orcs caught the cage as it came up through the opening and swung it inward to drop upon a platform. An orc came to examine the swinging door, puzzled by the broken chain. 

"Hop fast, you slugs! We need a new chain and lock. Prisoners are backing up the tubes!" One of the half dozen orcs manning the bay scampered over to a rack of hanging chains and restraints, clawing through it.

"What in Morgoth's name is going on down there?" the orc at the cell door growled, tossing the chain aside. 

Another orc grunted as it approached the cage. "Not our problem. What do we care if those scabs loose some prey? It's their hides, not ours."

"They've got every horn in the Round Room blaring. If they're barking about that elf, he's no trouble to them now. Didn't they see him fall into the pit?"

Sam stayed perfectly still in the centre of the cell, watching the orcs and getting a feel for the cage bay. The space was small, another pocket of rock with smooth round walls. A narrow portcullis was drawn down over a tunnel in the rock face behind the loading platform. A mass of exhausted prisoners were pressed into the bars, awaiting their transport. One of them, a man, was clearly dead, crushed into the iron by the numerous bodies crowding in behind him.

"Open the drain!" an orc guarding the tunnel gate shouted, as he pinched the dead man's face with disgust. "We've got more corpses in this bunch. Why they bother leading the dead up here, I don't want to guess."

"It's their game all right," replied the orc who'd been fishing for a lock. "They've got no pity for us. Dead flesh keeps the beasts fed, anyways." He tossed a new padlock to the orc at the cage door and took out a ring of keys. Sam watched him kneel at the back of the bay where there was a small barred drain at the level of the floor. The orc inserted a key and opened the grate, dropping it open with a clang. The drain was narrow, barely enough space to stuff a body long-wise, but room enough for a hobbit or two to crawl through.

Sam saw his chance when the orc opened the cage door to affix the new padlock. He took a breath, lifted Frodo and ran for it. 

"Hoy! You see that?"

"See what?"

"That shadow. It came right out of the cage!"

The orc at the door looked about, thinking his comrade mad. "The cage was empty, you worm!"

"I saw it, too–Wait! It's gone over to the wall, see it? It's at the drain!"

"Catch it before it gets to the eyries!"

Sam knelt at the drain and pushed Frodo down into it. A fetid stench wafted from its depths. Sam watched his master's cloaked body slide away into darkness. Sam hoped the fall wasn't too far as he dove in after. 

He fell some distance, sliding down smooth rock, scraping his arms and chin. Sam hit a bump and his head knocked against the stone ceiling of the chute, driving sparks into his vision as he tumbled out the other end, head-first into a pile of sticky bones, rancid and reeking of decay. 

Sam righted himself and looked about. They had fallen into a low room. From some chamber nearby came the unsettling sound of many beasts and orcs growling and bellowing. Frodo lay a few feet away in a heap of severed limbs and heads. The fall had roused him, and he was slowly crawling through logs of chopped, clotted flesh, trying to get away from whatever nightmare they had stumbled into. Sam waded through the horror until he could grasp Frodo's cloak and lift him up out of the bodyless legs. Frodo clung to his tunic, hiding his face in Sam's neck, his frightened breath coming in gasps. "It's going to be all right, Mr. Frodo. Just keep a hold on me."

Sam stumbled through the hill of bones until he gained the stone floor, blackened with dried blood. A heavy chopping block stood to one side of the room, a bloody axe imbedded in its surface. They'd fallen into a butchery. With a hand over his nose and the other around Frodo, Sam could see this small heinous room opened up at the far end into a lit corridor that dazzled his gloom-adjusted eyes. Despite the stench, Sam could feel fresh cool air drifting in from the passage.

Sam heard a rattling of metal wheels approaching from that bright passage and slunk back into a dark corner. An orc came in wheeling a cart. It stopped at the corpse pile and kicked some legs about until it found two or three it liked. The orc heaved the meaty cuts into the wheelbarrow and pushed it back out, whistling.

Knowing the shadows would keep them safe for only a short while, Sam waited until he could see clearly again and carried Frodo along the passage until he could peer cautiously out. Before him was an airy cavern as big as the Round Room, but marked by many dark pockets in the bowled rock walls. Directly overhead, some two-hundred feet or more, the chamber broke open into pale sky. A great black wasps' nest it was, inhabited by flying beasts of sinew, scales and webbed wings. This was the fellbeast eyrie, the hive where Sauron ordered his henchmen's steeds bred and fed to maturity. More than two dozen beasts were kept here in the hollows along the walls, where eddies of liquid rock once churned, centuries before. A loose network of scaffolding wrapped around the interior, spiralling upwards to nests halfway to the opening of the dome.

Sam held Frodo close as he stood, stunned by the freshness of the wind and the true light that stung his eyes. The sky outside was still muted by grey clouds, but the eyrie was nonetheless a breathable space, and compared to the rest of the Tower, clean. The beasts screeched and bellowed in their nests, chained as they were to the rocks with thick iron collars about their necks. Orcs were wandering about with buckets of water and carts and shovels to clear the niches of waste and dead scales. Sam could feel them under his feet, dry and rough, fallen from the nests high over his head. 

But there was something else in this cavern Sam had not thought he would see: Dwarves. Several of them were moving among the orcs, shouting orders at them in their serrated language. They stood a little taller than Gimli and wore shorter beards of black braided hair. Helmless, they wore no armour, but kept whips at their sides. 

A great beast flew down through the cavern's high opening, bellowing and beating its wings. Its dwarf keeper beckoned to it from high on the scaffold, directing it to descend into the adjoining eyrie. The beast landed in a stone nest of straw and lowered its head before the dwarf, allowing itself to be clipped to a long chain. The dwarf patted its massive shoulder, speaking to it in kind tones as the beast settled in to feed and drink.

Sam had not known that men and orcs were not the only races to swear themselves over as servants to the Enemy. Dwarves had slipped sides centuries ago and these black-bearded clansmen were descendants of the great dragon masters of long ago. They stole dragon's eggs and interbred them over the ages until a breed emerged that would obey and answer their bidding. It was a hard twist of fate that these same dwarves were also seduced by the Dark Lord--their greatest achievement becoming a beast of burden for the Nine. From the look of the proud herd, there were many steeds in waiting.

Sam knew he had tarried too long, for passing workers were beginning to turn their heads at the shifting half-shapes clinging to the shadows of the butchery. Behind them, Sam could hear muffled shouts and curses as orcs from the cage bay began to crawl down through the narrow drain after them, too big to slide freely. 

Sam tightened his hold on Frodo and trusted to luck as he crossed into the light of the eyrie and ran for a nearby ladder, leading up to an empty scaffolding. It was difficult to climb with one hand, but Sam knew he had to manage and grasped each rung after the other, hauling them both up. Down in the passage below, he could hear the scuffling of the orcs, clambering and shouting their way through the carrion of the butchery. Soon, they'd enter this space and rouse the eyrie keepers to search every nest until they were found. Sam's heart sank as he climbed faster. He knew he'd brought them both to a dead end. There was nowhere left to hide.

At the height of the ladder, Sam let Frodo slip onto the scaffold as he climbed up over him to have a quick look around. Dwarves were wandering up to their level along the boards and would soon be upon them. Sam took Frodo up again and looked to the eyrie a little ways behind him. The nest appeared to be abandoned, an empty bowl of black rock. Sam slid Frodo down into its smooth bottom and followed after on his belly. There was another pocket of rock just beyond, that remained in shadow. In there, he felt they might hide for just a while._ Just long enough. _

VII

When Sam carried Frodo into the shadowed rock opening, he found the flooring was not vacant, but covered in fresh clean straw. Within that straw bed stood a clutch of newly hatched eggs. Their leathery skin was still hardening in the breeze. Too exhausted to move any further, Sam lowered Frodo into the soft straw behind the clutch and lay alongside his master, breathing hard and trembling. 

Frodo was still awake and looked to Sam, a glimmer of hope still kindled in those distant eyes. Frodo did not utter a sound, but lifted a pale hand to touch the tears leaking from Sam's eyes, bringing the droplets to Sam's lips, wetting them. Sam searched those sad round eyes and took Frodo's giving hands in his and kissed them. Then he wrapped Frodo up so close in his arms it hurt to breathe. With his lips at Frodo's ear, Sam began to whisper his farewells.

"I know I haven't been of much good to you these last days. The whole world's gone wrong, and there's no use pretending it ain't. Perhaps it would have come out better if Gandalf had chosen you a wiser keeper. But he could not have loved you half as much and that's the truth. We've one more journey to take, master, and then we can rest. Hold tight to your Sam. Trust him." 

But even as they lay close and Frodo sighed, comforted in his arms, Sam could not bring his hand to the hilt of the sword, nor could his palm find its way over Frodo's lips. _I'll fail you again, _Sam thought and wept, holding him; rocking, waiting for the world to end.

***

It did not end. The dwarf Sam had seen coming up the scaffold was the keeper of this eyrie and now stood near the lip of the outer bowl and looked for the return of its ward. A big female flew in, another dwarf riding her saddled back, checking her reins as she roared her defiance and soared down through the cavern's high dome to land. Her talons scraped the stones as she slid to a stop. Wings still spread wide, she bellowed in fury as her rider dismounted and she suffered her collar to be clipped to a chain tethering her to a nearby post.

She was still hot with the rage of recent birthing, and the dwarves had taken her aloft so that she might cool her blood and return to shelter her clutch with care. Her eyes were flickering green as she hissed at her keeper and lunged at the chain, searching for her promised meal that had not yet arrived. The keepers shouted down to the whistling orc, lagging up the scaffold with the beast's meal of fresh cut flesh in a wheeled metal cart.

She was starved from a long gestation, so when the red meat she craved to sink between her fangs did not arrive immediately, her snout turned to the smell of her clutch, fresh and still tinged with blood. Her keeper called to her and drew his whip, lashing her breast, but she was unmoved, for another smell was present in her nest as well and she turned from the dwarf to go seek it.

***

Sam felt the beast's hot breath on his back before he saw her. The stench of rotting flesh blew over him as the beast stretched her long neck across her clutch to sniff what lay hidden in the straw. That his final moments of hard-won peace should be wrested from them by yet another indomitable foe, drove Sam into a sudden rage. 

He leapt up, whipping Sting through the air. "Go, you devil! Leave us!"

The beast cocked her hideous head, foam frothing and dripping from her riding bit. If Sam could read the expression in her large solid eyes it was neither wrath nor hunger, but confusion. 

"Back!" Sam shouted again, lunging fiercely toward her. "Leave us be, I said!"

To Sam's utter astonishment, the fellbeast obeyed. Lowering her head, she began to calmly retract her massive head from the nest, as if in apology. Sam watched her and a strange realisation took him. "Wait," he said, cautiously. The beast snorted and turned to face him, half in and out of the enclosure. 

"Lie down," Sam said, taking another brave step. The beast lowered her head and, with a furling of her great horn-tipped pinions, lay her belly upon the stone floor with a hiss. Sam stared open-mouthed at the calmed, waiting creature. In amazement, he raised his left hand before his eyes, faintly glinting with gems and silver. The rings; Dwarvish rings of power. 

The dwarf keepers were approaching across the bowl, shouting to the beast, ordering her to stand and come eat. But she did not stir and lay so her solid eyes rested upon Sam alone. _There's only one way to be sure, _Sam thought. _If you've not gone cracked from head to stern, this creature's at your bidding. _Sam looked beyond her saddled back to the roof of the dome, open to the light and air. _Up, I said. And up there is still to go!_

Sam's heart leapt with hope. "Up!" he cried. "Up!"

The fellbeast rolled her shoulders and got onto her taloned claws. Then she spread her wings and began to flap them, stirring the straw and dust into the air.

The dwarves ran for her, drawing their whips and Sam stepped back into the shadows as they fought to bring her down with shouts and lashes.

"Up," Sam said quietly and she heard him. _Up_, he said silently, and still she heard him, flapping until her talons left the stones and she strained her neck against the chain. _Break it! _Sam willed and the beast took the chain into her wide fanged mouth, thrashing and pulling at it until it snapped free, whipping the screaming orc and flesh cart over the lip of the nest. 

The fellbeast rose gracefully and hovered just out of reach of her trainers who were now running for the scaffold, shouting down to the confusion of orcs who had rushed the room, searching for the shadows that had escaped through the drain. The dwarves called to their bowmen to fetch their arrows as Sam ran back in to the straw to take Frodo up in his arms and carry him out. 

_Down! _he ordered, and the beast dropped lightly upon her claws, now that her keepers had run off to arm. Sam ran for her and she extended her front leg and leaned over so that Sam could crawl up to her shoulder and gain the saddle. He lifted Frodo upon it and hauled himself up behind. He took the reins and wrapped the long ends of them about Frodo's waist, securing him as he slumped back into Sam's arms, staring dazedly above into the light. 

"Up!" Sam shouted aloud, for he no longer cared who heard him. The beast sprung from the floor and beat her wings, flying them swiftly above the reaches of the highest eyrie. Below, Sam could see the orcs and dwarves tearing about the scaffolds and lower floor, hunting for bows and arrows as if their lives were at stake, scrambling helplessly to stop the thieves from rising higher and higher and up through the only unbarred exit in all of Barad-dûr. And Samwise Gamgee, a hobbit of the Shire, had found it.

VIII

The torchlights of the Dark Tower of Mordor fell away below, like the charred remains of a log smouldering in a dying fire. Sam willed the fellbeast higher through the whipping black clouds and away up over the heights of the cliffs. Glancing across the swarming plains, the belching of Mount Doom could still be seen shooting barbs of red fire into the sky. Sam turned away from it and concentrated on guiding the beast with his mind while holding Frodo fast in his arms, wrapped and tied into the reins. It was a long way down. 

Through the black swirls of smoke and ash, Sam saw the ragged edges of the Ephel Dúath rise and pass under them until they soared over the plains beyond. Mile upon mile of hard pitted ground stretched below, trampled and charred with the burning of the dead. The clouds were thick and difficult to see through, save in patches. Sam knew he'd never find his way if he didn't direct their mount up and beyond it.

_Higher_, he told the beast and she obeyed, raising her slobbering head and screeching at the red sky. They flew up through the hovering darkness for many hundreds of feet which Sam did not want to think too closely on. Eventually, the blackness thinned and cleared and Sam could breathe easier and see the blue roof of the heavens above them. For the first time in weeks, Sam saw the sun shining golden and pure, striking her rays down at the foul clouds, welcoming them into her curtain of light. Far off to the west, where the black clouds sputtered and failed, for the first time in his life, Sam could see the sparkling sweep of the sea.

Frodo's eyes were filled with light as they left the gloom behind them. Sam watched as tears welled in them before they blew off his master's face into the winds, falling onto the hidden lands below. His expression had lost some of its haggardness and Sam thought the light and warmth had lit a spark deep within that would catch and thrive if only given time and peace enough to allow it. Frodo did not look at the ground as Sam had to, eyeing a scrap of land through the ink to help him identify their course. His master's eyes were caught up in the glory of gold on blue--the colours of home and heaven.

They flew for some time, until far below Sam could just make out a green line of tall trees, rich with leaves. He was not sure how far they had flown, nor where they were going, but he thought by the angle of the sun and the sea they might be flying over Ithilien, heading away from the war-scarred plains. How long a flight it would be to Lothlórien Sam could not guess, but that was where he intended to go. If any place would stand the test of a second darkness it would be within those groves. But first they should seek a spot to find water and a few hours' rest. The clouds were thinner here and Sam thought he saw the flickering ribbon of a stream far below and ordered the beast to descend.

The trees grew larger and the scent of pine and holly stronger as he willed the fellbeast to soar just over the treetops, scouting for a safe place to land. Grass, bush and bough flew past under the translucent wings. Sam heard something quick sing through the air. The beast raised her head and bellowed, pitching them to the side. He called her level and she struggled, flapping. Something wet hit Sam's arm and he realised the beast was bleeding from a flapping tear in her wing's membrane. Before he could react, another whizzing was heard as the shaft of an arrow caught the beast in the neck. 

"Up! Up!" Sam cried. But the beast could not gain the sky and thrashed and soared sickly on a crippled wing as she struggled to catch the winds. Two more arrows flew, one shooting by Sam's head as the other thudded into the creature's belly and black blood spurted from her mouth in a sick gurgling. Sam could not see where the arrows were coming from, hidden in the green of the forest as they glided lower and lower. Sam's last thought, as he struggled to untie Frodo, was to jump for grass, as the beast's great wing snagged on a bough and she pitched hard, diving down into the snapping sweet-scented branches of the garden of old.

Continued in Part Three

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	3. Part Three: Chapters: One to Three

****

The Claiming of the Ring: Part III

by Europanya

__

But to the wizard's eye there was a faint change, just a hint as it were of transparency, about him, and especially about the left hand that lay outside upon the coverlet. "Still that must be expected," said Gandalf to himself. "He is not half through yet, and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can foretell. Not to evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can." 

-- _The_ _Fellowship of the Ring:Many Meetings_

****

I

Twilight had come and bathed the trees and long-forgotten shrubs in grey shadow. Sam woke to dry pain in his throat and dirt in his teeth. His body was crumpled against the cool stones of a broken arch, entwined with fingers of primrose, still abloom under a soiled sky. Black spatters of ash from the distant volcano had fallen while he lay, drawing dark smears across his skin and the coiled tendrils of leaf and vine under his bruised body. Sam shook his head clear and sat up, wiping his ash-dappled face on the back of his hand. 

He fought to focus his eyes and at once found the face he sought. Frodo was nearby, still caught in the reins, tangled and hung like a swaddling from the broken saddle within the branches of an overgrown hedge. Sam struggled to stand, but his tumble from the heights had set his balance askew. He walked dazedly to his master and found Sting still at his side ready to cut and chop. "Don't fret now, Mr. Frodo. Sam will have you down soon."

Frodo's eyes were open as he watched Sam progress eagerly, falling into his waiting arms as the last wrap of leather was cut free. Sam held him and felt his head and body for injuries. Frodo looked frightened some, but save for fresh scratches to his arms, Sam did not believe he had suffered anymore hurts. 

A loathsome cry came from nearby and Sam clutched Frodo to him. The light was failing, but Sam could just discern a large shape rolling slowly at the foot of a short hill. It was the fellbeast, wounded and bleating in pain. 

Sam got to his unsteady legs, and lifting Frodo, made his way through the wild grasses until he stumbled near the beasts' large blood-splattered head. He laid Frodo down comfortably and went to her, placing a sure hand upon her neck as she struggled to raise her head to him. The beast floundered in the depression her great weight had dug into the earth upon their landing. Her arrow-pierced wing was caught under her, twisted and broken into an unnatural angle. An ugly gurgling surged in her chest as she struggled to breathe. A flow of bloody bile ran between her fangs and onto the tumbled earth at Sam's knees. 

Pity filled Sam's heart at the sight of this creature's suffering. Without fear, he took her great jaw in his hands and lowered his forehead to her scaled brow. _Sleep now, _he bade her and her dulled eyes rolled shut. _Sleep,_ he told her and her shoulders sagged as her heavy frame relaxed into the ground. _Forget. _

Her great lungs collapsed and released their last breath as warm stickiness ran from her mouth and over Sam's hands. Her head grew too heavy for him to hold, so he rested her chin in the sweet-smelling grass. Sam leaned over her quiet form and with a brisk twist of his fingers, broke the latch that bound her iron collar, slipping it from about her neck and flinging it away into the bushes. "I won't forget," he said aloud to the growing shadows as her lifeblood drained and soaked the hem of the orc tunic where he knelt. "That's a promise," he said and wept.

***

Sam fell to his knees again, Frodo with him, upon the soft earth under the deepening boughs of cedar and pine. The nearby whisper of flowing water taunted his mind and tortured his throat. He'd been following the elusive sound through the forest for sometime; ever near, yet never closer. Though the air was easy to breathe, the dread mountain's exhalations still streamed in waves of high sailing ash and smoke, blocking the light of the hidden moon. Frodo had slipped once more into dreams that made him shake and cry out feebly. Sam knew they had to find water soon, and forced himself up onto his feet again and again, though his legs could hardly carry themselves another step. 

In the darkness, Sam's foot slipped and he fell, sliding over a mud-slicked embankment, dropping Frodo and tumbling over, splashing into the cool running shallows of a small stream. Water, fresh and clean, ran over his hands and cheek. Sam plunged his chin into it, drinking in choking gulps over and over until he thought he might drown himself if he didn't stop to breathe. He rolled to his side, letting the delicate flow of water trickle over his back and legs as he gasped for air. The stream wasn't more than a few inches deep, but the comfort it gave to his abused flesh was heavenly. He lay in it, panting, as the orc tunic was quickly soaked through. _Mr. Frodo?_ Sam sat up and squinted into a pale curtain of moonlight which had found a parting in the heavy clouds. 

Frodo had fallen with him over the drop and was lying a few feet away on his side, running his fingers idly through the edge of the stream. Sam crawled to him and removed Frodo's cloak and belt, setting them aside. "Come, Mr. Frodo; there's water here! Enough to lie in." Sam carried him over the muddy bank and sat in the deepest part of the stream with Frodo across his knees, letting the flow of the water caress his master's unclad skin, cleaning his wounds, as Sam slipped cupped leafuls of water through his dry lips.

Frodo drank willingly and let his arm flow out wide into the stream, palm up. His eyes followed the path the water took through his fingers, seemingly marvelled by how the ripples glinted now and then with reflections of the struggling moon. Sam lay his master's head back easy so the water could drag through his matted curls, letting the worst of their sufferings wash downstream with the dusting of ash and fallen leaves. Though their forms were still faded by the power of the rings, Frodo's eyes caught Sam's in their renewed brightness and he smiled like a child bathed lovingly in his mother's arms. 

"We're free, Mr. Frodo," Sam whispered and answered his smile, the first he had felt rise upon his face in the longest while. "We got free."

***

It was deep into the heart of the night when Sam woke with a start. He opened his eyes and peered about, keeping still where he lay next to his master under the sheltering roots of a stream-side cypress. He'd taken off the wet tunic and lain it over the tree's twisting branches to dry, then settled he and Frodo down for the night hidden from sight and warm under the Lórien cloak and a gathered pile of dry moss and leaves.

When Sam didn't hear anything unusual, he closed his eyes and drew Frodo closer, protecting and warming him with his skin. After a good soak in the stream, and many more long drinks from it, Sam had found by all blind luck a young olive tree, just beginning to ripen with fruit. The olives were small but sweet, a much welcomed delicacy to his lips and hollow stomach. He pitted a handful of the oily fruits for Frodo and with patience, managed to feed him some, bite by bite, until Frodo lay drowsy in his arms and would not take another taste nor further offering of water. Sam himself had drunk until his belly felt like it was going to burst and he was still thirsty, even now. Whatever had woken him, bird or squirrel, he was craving another long drink. He slid his arm carefully out from under Frodo's damp head and stood up, blanketing the cloak and leaves about his master before going down the few feet to the stream.

Sam knelt in the moss and lowered his lips to the water. The sky had cleared some and the moon had descended in the west. Sam wondered who had shot them down from the sky. He knew it could be either friend or enemy. But no one had come to them the whole afternoon he had lain senseless against the wall, nor had anyone followed them into the trees nor come within earshot of their resting place. 

__

We'll stay here sometime while I have myself a look about. There's some roots that might be thickening this time o' year and tender greens if I get a chance to spy them come daybreak.

Although dangers were never far from Sam's mind, the peace he felt here as compared to their recent lodgings gave him every hope. He breathed deeply, the air of the night was cool on his skin, but he was not cold. It was a mercy to be free of the Tower's relentless heat. Sam bent over the stream again and drank until his back ached and sat up, splashing water over his face. He did not see the soldier standing on the opposite bank until the last of the moisture was rubbed from his eyes.

Sam sat frozen with fright and blinked. He'd never before seen the like of this tall willowy man. Proud and fierce, the man stood as still as a stone wall. He carried a sword at his side and held a silver-tipped spear in his hand. The figure stared upon Sam without a blink of his cold grey eyes. Sam was shaken with an unnatural dread and loathing. Something was not right about this figure, his stature, nor his stillness.

"Hoy, you!" Sam shouted, since there was no use in hiding. Dwarf rings were seemingly no cloak for this man's steady gaze. "What are you about, scaring poor hobbits in the night?" When the figure still failed to even breathe, Sam got to his feet and backed slowly away, guessing how many steps he needed to cover before he could feel the solid hilt of Sting in his hand. Though clearly if this man chose to fight, Sam would be no match to his impressive height. "Speak up, now! I don't care for this staring! I've had a bit of a bad week and wish to be left alone, you understand?"

The man did not move and Sam turned about and ran for the cypress, reaching down into the roots and unsheathing Sting. Sam leapt up on the thick base of the tree, a small naked hobbit flashing a blade threateningly at nothing. The figure was gone and only the shadows of branches nodded calmly on the opposite shore. Sam strained to listen for sound but there was nothing to hear. The loathing he had sensed like spiders crawling up his skin had passed and Sam felt the comforts of nature and her gifts settle about him again. In an act he could not explain even to himself, Sam put the sword away and returned to the cypress, slipping down into the sheltering roots, burrowing under the leaves and hugging Frodo to him where he soon fell fast asleep once again.

****

II

By morning Sam had forgotten his encounter with the strange man. He knew he had woken in the night to drink and had dreamed of someone with a spear, but could make no sense of it. For now his mind was occupied only with the search for food. Now that his belly had remembered what it meant to have a bite in it, Sam's hunger had come back to him in a rush. A cornucopia of hearth-baked delights danced through his head as he snooped through the weedy overgrowth for lost herbs and vegetables.

He'd come upon a tangle of blackberries that morning, just beginning to fruit. The tiny bites of bitter green were enough to help clear his head to continue the search while Frodo sat within earshot in a nearby glade looking up at the wind in the treetops, a glimmer of childlike fascination in his eyes. Sam had little luck getting Frodo to accept the frugal breakfast, although he did his best to keep him watered and noted the sallow clefts in his face and chest had filled in some. His master had been awake for longer spells today, and by noontime, Frodo had surprised him by getting to his unsteady legs and taking a few stiff steps as Sam held his arm and spoke encouragements.

Sam dabbed his forehead on the tunic sleeve as he dug beneath familiar-looking shoots for signs of developing roots. He was sweating now, although the breeze made the forest cool. He'd woken with a heat to his cheeks and a pain in his groin that could only mean a sickness in his body that must have come from not passing water in so long. He'd heard of such illnesses and knew their remedies, but was hard pressed to find anything properly edible this time of year, let alone the particular herbs and fruits that could cure it. 

Sam ignored the pain and with sure fingers freed the tender roots from the loosened earth. To his gardener's eye they looked to be a variety of yellow parsnip. Sam bit at the end of one for taste. It was bitter as expected, but there was no burning on his tongue to warn of poison. He gathered the roots by their long greens and took them down to the stream to rinse before rejoining Frodo in the sunny glade. 

Frodo was waiting for him, hidden like a fawn in the waist-high grass, the folds of the elven cloak about his shoulders. His round curious eyes brightened as he watched Sam draw close. Sam saw a smile wake on his master's lips, pleased and warm, as he tipped his head to look up at him.

"Sam" he said slowly, and the hobbit bearing that name dropped his meagre harvest and fell to his knees in amazement. 

"Mr. Frodo?" Sam answered, his hands shaking with relief as he reached to brush a lopsided tangle of dark hair from Frodo's eyes. 

Frodo lowered his chin shyly and opened his mouth, a cloud of concentration etching his brow. "Sam," he said again, with some effort, then hesitantly, "hobbit." 

Sam's vision swam with growing tears to hear the voice he had missed so dearly at last returned to his master's lips. "That's right, Mr. Frodo. We're hobbits. Hobbits of the Shire."

"Shire" Frodo echoed softly and gave Sam a puzzled look. 

"The Shire's our home, Master."

Frodo looked up at the treetops around them. "Shire," he said again and smiled eagerly at Sam.

"Here? No, this ain't the Shire. But some of it could be if you saw it on a good day, I reckon. The sun's made a show of herself today, so I suppose it's good enough. We'll call it home for now at any rate. Until we can find a way home."

Frodo had grown distracted by Sam's hands and reached out to take Sam's left hand in his. His fingers danced over the rings Sam wore on his first and second fingers. Then he pointed to his own hand, bearing the third. "Ring" he said and gripped Sam's fingers suddenly as soon as he'd spoken it. In Frodo's eyes there rose an unwelcomed darkness and fear that bent his shoulders as he huddled into Sam's embrace.

"That's a word we needn't speak, Mr. Frodo," Sam said, hugging the trembling hobbit close. "Not ever again."

***

By nightfall, Sam's fever had worsened as he lay curled under the cypress in the long tunic, wincing at the pain stabbing through his loins. He tossed in and out of sleep, wracked with shivers and unable to keep warm. His awareness of Frodo was blurred in his fevered half-dreams. The night was visited by strange sounds, from the creaking of the old cypress in the wind to the distant rustle of what Sam thought could be movement and strange cries in the deep forest. It seemed to him that Frodo sometimes slept fitfully at his side and other times could be found sitting up, looking lost and frightened, his eyes watching the face of the moon for some hidden foe. 

If Sam was not dreaming it seemed to him Frodo understood he was ill and had brought him handfuls of water from the stream time and again until Sam could no longer hold his chin steady enough to sip from Frodo's folded hands. His master would lean in close and press his cheek to his hot forehead, gripping his arm and speaking his name over and over. Sam would try to answer him, to calm him, but his awareness was fleeting as his fever would rise like an ill-timed tide and wash him under into confusion again.

In the early hours before the dawn, Sam woke from a dream of fire and chains hanging from his limbs to the urgent call of his groin. He sat up and hissed through the pain as he struggled to relieve himself. He wept with the effort and soon found himself on the edge of a swoon, head hung between his shoulders as he knelt on hands and knees, the grass and leaves swimming before his eyes. He was alone. Frodo was not at his side nor at the nearby bank. There were more odd noises sounding through the trees, heavy and dark, cracking branches and leaves, surrounding him. 

"Mr. Frodo?" he called out into the darkness. "Mr. Frodo, where are you?" Sam knew he was too weak to stand and cursed his body for betraying him at last. _What if he's got confused and run off? How are you going to find him?_

A glimmer caught his eye in the distance and Sam raised his head. "Frodo?" he called, but all he saw were waking nightmare figures of men with spears standing on the opposite side of the river. A dozen or more of them, tall and stern, one with an arm held out, pointing toward the near bank. 

"Hobbit," the man hissed with a voice like doused steel. Fear forged through Sam's shivering skin to his bones, dragging him down with the weight of terror. He thought they had been a dream.

The world pitched wild and Sam sank to the ground, struggling to hold onto his awareness. His lids drooped shut and his mind slipped as the visions of the rings floated through his head. He saw the ribbon of their stream from high overhead, but not as it was two days ago as they had flown it, but as it was now--dressed in the darkness. A piercing scream shook the air from high above and Sam's eyes shot open in time to see a winged shadow pass across the setting moon. _It's the rings! The wraiths have come for the rings! That's how they see you. _

Sam grabbed his left hand and struggled to remove them one, then the other, letting the silver bands fall to the earth before the pain and the night clenched tight around him and he faded from thought as the booming voice of one he thought they had all lost, called his name over the rustle of the leaves.

__

Samwise!

****

III

When Sam woke he could hear water dripping quietly to his left. At once, his worst fears rushed back to him--the memory of their Tower prison and its endless drip stone. But then, his senses told him this place where he lay was different. For one, there was no hard stone under his cheek, but soft folded cloth fashioned as a pillow for his sleeping head. The air was not stifled with fetid smells, but cool and clean, smelling of fresh flowing water. There was no longer an itching layer of grime over his skin, nor any pain in his throat or loins. He was clean; cleaner than he could remember feeling in months. From head to toes, his freshened skin told him he'd been bathed and scrubbed and dried. 

Sam rolled to his side and could feel bandages and wrappings crinkle across his back and around the rim of his brow, long-borne injuries eased now with salves. He moved his arm and could tell he was dressed in a large loose shirt, soft and clean. He was sore and weak, but there was a restfulness to his dawning awareness as if he'd been allowed to lay quiet for many long hours, perhaps a day or more. He wasn't thirsty anymore; his lips had lost their swollen sting. And there was something tickling his chest, too. He moved a lazy hand to finger it. A small chain was clasped about his neck. Upon it hung the three rings he'd brought out of Mordor, worn as his master had worn the One. 

Sam searched his mind for answers, but could recall little save strange faded dreams of being lifted and carried through the forest in the arms of a figure in white who spoke his name with kindness and told him he was safe. Sam had believed that voice; it was the same voice he had heard speak to him in the darkest heights of the tower, guiding him steadily through those horrors and into the arms of this protector who carried him and lulled him into a deep sleep.

Sam's assurances grew as he opened his eyes to the rough walls of the stone alcove in which he lay upon a pallet, covered in warm pelts. A light shown from above. It lit the room beyond which was larger and although rounded, it was not the same black rock he'd known in Barad-dûr but a blue-grey stone, carved not by the jaws of fire, but from the patient hands of water. 

The light came through a small opening in the high wall and bent at a slant, cutting the dimness of the cave in two. It pooled about a pair of figures which sat upon the floor below: An old man with white hair and a long beard, dressed in snowy flowing robes, and the hobbit he held in his arms. An aged, yet firm hand was laid upon the small pale brow. Frodo, his face clean and curls carefully combed, lay pliant across the old man's lap, deep in sleep. The old man spoke to his master in the wispy words of a language Sam did not understand, save for his name now and again, sad and loving, dropped like rain upon the surface of a pond: Frodo, Frodo. The colours of his robes had changed, but the voice Sam could not forget.

"Gandalf!" Sam choked and sat up so quickly the room began to spark and turn before his eyes. 

The wizard raised his head, his grey eyes warming beneath the woolly bristles of his eyebrows. "Samwise Gamgee," he said with a fond smile. "How very good it is to see you again."

Sam gasped in wonder and disbelief. "Gandalf" he said, as if speaking the name once again might make the vision more true. The fine pain of grief revisited him. "We thought you were lost."

"Not so lost as to not find my way back," Gandalf said softly. "Though, had I half your ingenuity, my clever friend, I might have returned much sooner."

Sam rubbed his eyes, still unable to believe the sight. "I must be dreaming again," he said.

"No, Sam," Gandalf said, opening a white-robed arm to him. "Come, and be comforted."

Sam slipped down from his perch and went willingly into Gandalf's embrace. The wizard took him into a circle of shelter Sam had long mourned, but had at times dreamt of, as if Gandalf had become a great white eagle soaring high above them just out of sight as he and Mr. Frodo had wandered, beaten yet driven to their task. He closed his eyes and pressed his face to the wizard's thick beard, allowing himself to ease his vigilance and weep quietly like a child who has been lost and arrived home once more safe. Gandalf pressed a kiss to Sam's curly head and held them both with only the light and the trickling of the water to witness their moment of peace.

Sam felt as if a heavy yoke had been lifted from his shoulders by the time his tears had ceased. He wiped his eyes and looked up at the wizened face in wonder. Here was Gandalf, alive and breathing, yet somehow changed. The wizard seemed stronger to his hobbit's eyes, larger perhaps, more vibrant, yet at the same time so much older than Sam remembered. Older still when he gazed upon the sleeping face of Frodo who he held protectively in the bend of his arm. Sam reached to take Frodo's limp hand in his. It was warm, but still pale and thin, resting upon a long soft tunic much as Sam now wore. There was an unspoken pain here between Gandalf and himself, even within the gentle quiet of their room. Sam found he had to ask what was so darkly held in his heart. 

"What's happened to him, Gandalf? What's happened to my master?"

Gandalf passed a hand over Frodo's curls, as if he held a delicate blossom. "His mind is broken," he said with great heaviness. "But he is not in pain, nor does he suffer as I had most feared. Though it seems there is little he remembers or understands. For now we may count this as a blessing."

"Then you _know_," Sam said sadly. He was relieved he would not have to recount those final moments in the heart of the mountain. At least not yet. "Begging your pardon, Mr. Gandalf, sir, but how?"

Gandalf looked to Sam and regret echoed in his kindly eyes. "I have been with you both. Though I could not see with your eyes, nor hear with your ears, I did know something of your thoughts--when I knew my own. You have never been far from me, though it may have seemed so."

"Then" Sam began, though his upbringing told him he should mind his tongue. "Why didn't you help us?"

Gandalf sighed and his eyes searched Sam's. "Long are the years I have walked this earth. Many battles have I seen--great shining armies of dwarves, men and elves. Yet never have I known a pair of soldiers as set to their task as you and Frodo. There are times, Sam, when all wisdom is but a burden. Your journey was upon a road where all might fails and the heart must be true to endure, and made stronger than swords when it is bound to another. Great was my hope when Aragorn told me he had not sent Frodo on alone. I spoke to you both at times, when you were most in need of words, else I held my tongue. Any further aid from myself would have led us all surely to our quickest end."

"But!" Sam blurted. "It _has_ come to the quickest end. The worst of ends, if I may say so. We lost the Ring, Gandalf! We failed you!"

Gandalf shook his head brusquely. "Hush, now, my dear hobbit, I'll hear of no such talk of failure. The end has yet to come, though the path may be dim. We have still some hope. You have brought us a mighty gift, my friend, do you not recall? _Ash ghash krim--_ you opened the door of the enemy's armoury which no force nor spell has been able to pierce for centuries or more." Gandalf pointed to the rings about Sam's neck. "The Dwarvish rings of power: the very three. A gift most unlooked for," he said with a grin. "Indeed, hobbits are most ingenious when it comes to pilfering rings. I myself was unable to acquire them many years ago in Dol Guldur, long before your time. This is the hope you and Frodo bring. All is not lost."

Sam wasn't sure how these rings would bring promise to such dark times, but he knew beyond a doubt Gandalf had spoken the truth. He would always speak the truth to him now until the end of days. "I thought for certain Mr. Frodo and I were done for when those wraiths came for us in the forest," he said. 

"Ah," Gandalf said with sudden enlightenment. "That is why you spoke of them in your fever-dreams. No, dear Sam, those were not wraiths you saw. Although, neither are they counted among the living. They are men in shadow form. They took an oath long ago to aid the houses of Númenor against the Dark Lord, and although they have fulfilled that oath, some are still not at rest and have followed the King upriver to Ithilien to continue in his service until their task is wholly complete."

Sam was even more befuddled and figured it due to his lack of knowledge in all things worldly. "King, you say. I don't understand."

Gandalf smiled. "You will in proper time, Samwise. There will be some days ahead of us now for much talk as we wait for the King to return to us. And perhaps then you will tell an old man how two hobbits came to be so far into the woods of Ithilien unseen. But for now, rest knowing you are well protected in these caves."

"Pardon me for asking, sir, but where are we?"

At this the old wizard shared a heart-felt grin that chased off the last of Sam's self-doubt. "A place you have been before, or so I understand. Henneth Annûn: The Window of the Sunset. You have once again become a guest of the Gondorian Rangers. And they much look forward to breaking their fast with you, now that you are well. They will be gathering soon in the main chamber." 

"But, what of Mr. Frodo?" Sam asked, glancing at his master's quiet face. "I made a promise, Gandalf. I wouldn't leave his side, not ever again. Not even for breakfast, though I suspect I could eat several as hungry as I am."

"Then you need not break that troth," Gandalf said, taking Sam's words to heart. "Like you, he has slept long and blessedly. I shall wake him." The wizard set his hand upon Frodo's brow and spoke his name in a clear voice, bidding him to wake. 

Frodo's eyes opened in confusion as he first looked to Gandalf and then to Sam where his brow eased and he greeted him with a shy smile.

"Sam," Frodo said, reaching for his hand. 

"See, he knows me," Sam said. 

Gandalf nodded, though a darkness still shadowed his demeanour. "Indeed, he does."

***

Sam remembered the cavern of the falls well, with its yawing mouth curtained by a steady flow of shimmering water, plummeting to the jagged pool below. Only this time the guards would not be surprised by a slippery diving thief stealing fish in the early hour. It was late morning by Sam's reading of the filtered light as Gandalf led them out through the narrow warren of caves from their room to this high busy space--cluttered with weapons and provisions, hastily stowed and much fewer than Sam recalled. They waited by the falls together as the trestle tables were taken down from the walls and set. Rangers moved about, prying open barrels and uncorking casks. Benches were arranged and wooden plates and cups dusted and set with utensils. 

Frodo clung to Sam's arm, peering around his shoulder, a little frightened by the sight of so many big folk about, dressed in their green and brown cloaks and leathers. Many nodded as they passed the three of them and Gandalf spoke a few quick words to some Sam felt he'd met briefly before in Faramir's company. A basin of water was brought before them and Sam motioned for Frodo to dip his hands in.

"Here is where we got to know Faramir of Gondor," Sam said to Gandalf as they finished drying their faces and hands.

"Alas, you will not be greeting him again today. He is one among the missing, lost to us when the White City fell."

Sam gasped. "The city! The City of Gondor; the one with the many walls? I saw it."

Gandalf looked quizzically at Sam. "How is that so?"

"It was in a vision I saw up in the Tower, in this magic rock, I believe. I saw the war as it happened over time. Many soldiers were lying in the fields and there were pits dug into the earth and filled with fire. Or had been; I saw the soot and smoke. It was hard to understand."

"Indeed, you are full of surprises, my friend. Perhaps our long talk should occur sooner than later. But for now hold your tongue if you wish to get a bite in. The Rangers are impatient for your news. But I've advised them they should hold their questions until a hobbit has some proper food and drink in him to ease the telling."

Frodo held on to Sam's hand as they took their seats at the centre table--a position of honour last held by Faramir, whose absence was sorely noted by an unoccupied seat across from them, an empty platter and silver goblet. Before them was laid a meal of dried fruits and meats and hard bread. Some cheese was at hand which made Sam's mouth water. He and Frodo were seated upon empty barrels as before, piled with folded blankets so they could reach their plates. Gandalf took the bench upon the other side of Frodo to help Sam serve him and calm him with assurances. No other words were spoken, yet many of the rangers gave the hobbits curious glances and polite nods. The company ate in silence, briskly and efficiently, after the customary rise and acknowledgement of ancient Númenor which Frodo seemed to dimly recall and responded to promptly. Many of the men bore bandaged wounds from recent fights, others carried the heavy weight of war upon their shoulders and reflected its recent hardships in their eyes. At the far table Sam now noticed some men dressed in sundry livery among the rangers--silver and black, and blue devices, even the mark of a swan. It seemed Henneth Annûn was no longer a haven for the Ithilien rangers alone.

Frodo watched Sam closely and ate whatever he put to his lips in mimicry, yet not with nearly the enthusiasm. His master seemed more set to the purpose of pleasing Sam than filling his stomach. Still, Sam did his best to urge Frodo to try a bite of everything as if he were back home many years ago with a young Marigold, plying her with patient spoonfuls and encouraging words. 

Near overcome with hunger at the sight of real food, Sam had to remind himself to go slowly as his stomach had not yet reaccustomed itself to meals much beyond waybread and berries. He soon felt quite full, although he ate what a hobbit would consider to be a runt's supper. There was more room for wine, however, and Sam spared no effort in swallowing down a man's brimming cupful of it when he wasn't holding the goblet up to Frodo's lips and inviting him to take a few timid sips.

What little Frodo had eaten and drunk soon went to his head and he was fading by the time Gandalf gathered the head officers and the hobbits into a lamp-lit antechamber for the start of their talk. Sam sat back on a bench chair lined with furs and Frodo crawled up next to him, his hand still firmly clasped in Sam's. Frodo seemed much more at ease, but kept quiet and soon laid his nodding head against Sam's shoulder and watched the men warily through heavy lids.

Gandalf took his seat next to the ranger's first lieutenant who Sam recalled being a constant at Faramir's side when they were last in Henneth Annûn. His look was haggard and his mouth set in a stern line as he eyed the hobbits. Sam thought his look ill-favoured, but was soon distracted by Gandalf removing his pipe from the folds of his robes.

The wizard knew that look of longing and said, "You'll pardon me, Sam, if I don't offer you a light. I've nothing to fill the old clay with myself. I hold it as a distraction for my brooding thoughts. I'm afraid pipeweed is a luxury long lost deep in the wilds." The wizard took the pipe between his teeth as the remaining men found their seats. When they were settled, he nodded for Sam to speak. 

"Where should I begin?" he asked, glancing at the lieutenant. Sam had thought he would get to talk to Gandalf alone, freely. But the presence of the men made him wonder what was now expected of him. "Where did we leave off, exactly?"

"If you wouldn't mind, Master Gamgee, I'd ask you to begin from when our Captain set you and your companion free," said the man with cold civility. "We have been most anxious for news of your travels while you slept. And if I might ask, how fares the little fellow? He is not as I remember him, well-spoken and forthright. He seems out of sorts. Perhaps his task was too great for him, as I had feared."

Sam frowned. "He's had a fair hard time of it, sir. Begging your pardon, but we've both seen places far worse than these here caves and forests. You'd be a bit quiet yourself if you'd had an eyeful of Mordor as we have. Not to forget the terrible burden my master took on for the sakes of your lot."

The lieutenant straightened at this and eyed Gandalf impatiently. "I suggest you let Samwise speak freely," the wizard said in his defence. "He may bear news none of us have thought to hear. I have little mind to interrupt him. I'd find it wisest to hold your judgements until you've come to know the length of their road."

This put Sam more at ease and he settled himself and his master more comfortably in the furs. Frodo's eyes slid shut as the steady cadence of Sam's honest telling of their days beyond Ithilien began. The lieutenant took Gandalf's advice and held his tongue for the duration. Sam had meant to be brief for he was growing sleepy himself with a belly full of wine, but once the words began and took shape, Sam found he couldn't stop and soon was quite alert as he recounted their struggle across the plains and up the very walls of the dread mountain and into its heart.

The lieutenant weathered his reaction to Frodo's weakening at the brink of the fire in a hard stare to the cave wall; whereas Gandalf closed his eyes in a silent moment of sorrow before asking Sam gently to continue. Sam then told of their capture and imprisonment and the lengths he went to set them free from the heights of the Dark Tower. Gandalf only interceded at two points in the narration, asking Sam for more clarity and detail concerning the sword the Dark Lord's lieutenant had brought out of the armoury, and secondly, how Sam had managed to guess Frodo was being held in the Round Room's hanging cage. 

"I asked the rings to send me a vision of him," he said, wondering why Gandalf chose this of all points to become stuck on. 

"But in that vision did you see Frodo himself, or did you see what he might have viewed through his own eyes?"

Sam tried to recall the vision as clearly as possible. To him it seemed he had been shown Frodo, but now that he thought on it, he had not seen him at all, but rather the firepit from his vantage. "Why should it matter?" he asked the pondering wizard.

Gandalf chewed the end of his cold pipe. "I am not certain if it should be significant at all, but it does trouble me. Perhaps it is only folly on my part. Please do continue, Samwise."

Gandalf's only other utterance when Sam had nearly finished was an "Ah!" at the point when Sam commandeered the fellbeast. Sam did not tell Gandalf what desperate errand had driven them into that clutch of eggs, but rather the fortuitous surprise at what wearing the rings at that moment produced. 

"Tell me this, Sam," Gandalf said. "Were you wearing all three rings or only the two when you called the fellbeast to you?"

"Only the two. Frodo had the other and the cloak to hide him."

"Hmm, how very interesting. I hadn't thought to credit dwarves with the breeding of those creatures, nor to predict their rings' power over them. Little wonder we failed to identify your arrival. The rangers and I were shocked to hear a dwimmerlaik had come upon two little hobbits running naked in the woods. We'd no clear understanding of how you'd gotten there."

"We were shot down by arrows," Sam informed him. "I didn't much care for that. I'd plans to fly clear to Lothlórien."

"Hmm," Gandalf, mumbled in thought. "That might yet come to pass. Tell me, what became of your beast?"

Sam was puzzled that Gandalf did not know. "She died, most horribly in the old gardens. 'twas terrible to see. I'd thought these men here had taken us down."

The rangers looked to one another and frowned in confusion. "Was this at last full moon?" asked the lieutenant.

Sam nodded. "I reckon so. The moon's been hard to spot through the clouds, you know."

"Could very well have been Captain Legolas. His company set out that eve," said one of the men. "I've heard told he'd shot down servants of the Nameless One before."

"Legolas!" cried Sam. "Then he's alive?"

"Yes, Sam; he lives indeed," said Gandalf. "And Gimli is with him along with Elrohir and other men and elves from the northern regions. They'll be returning soon."

"What about Mr. Merry and Pippin?" Sam asked, suddenly amazed to hear anyone was left alive outside the confines of their watery keep. But his heart was not lightened by Gandalf's answer.

"We have no word of them, at present. But do not grieve, Sam. Many have survived and retreated into the deep forests and vales. Legolas and Gimli are searching for them now. The forces of the west are regrouping, though the progress has been slow and secret. No show of strength will win out now that the Ring has found its master. We must be patient."

"I do hope they're found," Sam said solemnly as he looked to Frodo, asleep in the crook of his arm. "Mr. Frodo will take terrible hurt to hear they aren't." 

Sam was quiet for some moments as he bowed his head in thought. "I've nothing more to say," he said and got to his feet, taking Frodo up to carry him to their beds.

******

In the next few days that followed, Sam rested as much as he could and ate whenever food was available. Many of his bandages were removed and his strength was returning. Gandalf stayed near, keeping careful watch over them, especially Frodo who he would often sit quietly with, looking far into his eyes and speaking in various tongues. What healing Gandalf brought his master seemed to help, as Frodo was remembering more and would call Gandalf by name and begin to ask questions in a slow uncertain voice, struggling to regain his words. And Sam, too, was asked to speak more of his journeys, but although the men were demanding of him, Gandalf seemed aware of and respected the parts Sam felt too painful to recount in great length. Of most concern were details he could recall of the Dark Tower's functions and the movements and size of the armies Sam had witnessed from its high windows. In turn, he learned more of the battles that had taken place upon the fields beyond Minas Tirith and the many thousands upon thousands who lost their lives in its futile defence. The City had fallen soon after the western armies were scattered at the Black Gate, and from recent reports, her battered and burnt walls now lay dark and quiet behind a cloud of black shadow enveloping Mt. Mindolluin. It was thought there, high upon the citadel, was where Sauron now held court. Though none could be certain.

At night Frodo slept at Sam's side under the pelts. His sleep was often broken by fits of unfavourable dreams and sudden starts. Other times Sam would wake to find his master sitting up staring at the lamplight as if it were speaking to him. Sometimes it appeared Frodo would answer in short clipped words: yes, how? when? Sam would touch his hand and bid him lie back where soft words and gentle strokes would lead him back into sleep. But these strange night disturbances Sam did not share with Gandalf. He felt it was only to be expected seeing how hard his master's journey had been. What mattered to Sam were the slow improvements in his waking hours: How Frodo was no longer shy of the big people and would now speak to them on occasion, learning their names. His wounds were healing under Sam's care and he was eating somewhat better, too. Sam needed to urge him less to take his share.

"Sam?" he asked one night when the light had failed on the day and they were lying warm and drowsy in their little rocky cove, waiting for sleep. "Where is our home? The Shire?"

"A long way from here, Mr. Frodo."

"When can we go there?"

"Not for some time, I think. We need to stay put until things get better."

"When will they get better?"

"I can't say rightly. Some time, I think."

"Did I have a garden, Sam?"

"Aye, Mr. Frodo, you did."

"I think I remember the garden. A garden under a hill. Did we live there, Sam? In that garden?"

"You did, Mr. Frodo, in Bag End under the Hill. I tended your garden, though."

Frodo's brows drew together. "You were my gardener?"

"I was. And will be again, I hope."

"How very strange," he said, rolling away from Sam and towards the sputtering lamplight. "I don't remember you that way. As a servant, I mean."

"How do you remember me?" Sam was hesitant to ask.

Frodo sighed, "As my friend."

"I was that to you as well, Mr. Frodo. And you've been my friend, too. For many years."

"How long?"

"Since I was but a wee lad and you and Mr. Bilbo had my gaffer on as gardener."

"Bilbo?" Frodo asked curiously. "Do I know him?"

Sam felt a pang of sadness. "Yes, Frodo. Mr. Bilbo, he was like your very own dad. He raised you up all right and proper, taught you about the elves and such. Don't you remember?"

"I remember someoneolder with grey hair and a jolly laugh. I thought that was my father. But it must be Bilbo. Tell me Sam, what happened to my father?"

"He and your mother were drowned on the Brandywine when you were a lad," Sam said gently, uncertain of Frodo's reaction. He'd never spoken much about them to Sam.

"Drowned?" Frodo said with dismay. "My life must have been very sad, indeed. No wonder I can't recall much of it."

"It will come back to you, Mr. Frodo," Sam said, touching his arm. "Not all of it was sad."

Frodo turned his face to Sam once more and he mustered a small smile despite his melancholy. "No. It wasn't all sad," he said and lay his head upon Sam's shoulder and wished him goodnight.

*****


	4. Part Three: Chapter Four

IV

The nights passed and a heavy rain fell over the old gardens, filling the air with the scent of sodden herb and pine. It made Sam's heart ache for home and garden and he wondered if they would ever leave this place or remain hidden in the caves of the falls forever.

One eve Gandalf came to them as he and Frodo were supping and said, "I must leave you tonight. I have had word from Legolas; he requires my assistance. I will ride out at once. Look for me to return with his company a few days hence." Gandalf went into the tunnels whistling for Shadowfax, the most magnificent horse Sam had ever seen, and was soon off into the rain.

Sam was woken a few evenings later by a commotion in the main chamber. Many voices were heard and claps and cheers. Sam leaned close to Frodo, and could discern by his slow even breath that he was deeply asleep. Sam got up quietly and dressed, then made his way up the tunnels toward the newly lit torches.

The large room was filled with strange men and elves soaked to the bone and clapping one another on the backs or using the greeting gestures common to the elves. Sam moved through them looking for Gandalf.

"Sam!" A clear voice rang out and Sam whirled about. Legolas slipped through the throng and came toward him, calling his name in joy as Gimli surprised him from behind, wrapping him up in a rough hug, leaving his feet dangling off the stones.

"Master Gamgee! A fine evening this is to see you whole and well!" said Gimli with much enthusiasm as he dropped a breathless Sam back on his toes, the back of his tunic damp from the dwarf's dripping beard.

"And lighter is my heart," said Legolas, kneeling to place a hand upon his shoulder, "to see with my own eyes that you are here amongst friends once again."

Sam stared at the both of them in amazement, for it had been so long since he and Frodo had rowed from the shores of Parth Galen. Aside from their bedraggled hair, they looked exactly the same. "'tis a wonder beyond any to see you both," said Sam. "I'd thought none of us would ever meet again." 

"By the blessings of the Valar we have been brought together once more," said Legolas with a smile. "Greater blessings than you know. Here is Gandalf; he carries a burden you will be heartened to see."

Gandalf entered the cavern from the dim corridor and in his arms was a bundle, wrapped in blankets, which he laid carefully upon a bench, propped against a sack of grain. The bundle moved and spoke. "Sam? Where is Sam? I heard him!"

The occupant was still hidden under a hood, but Sam knew the voice without a second guess.

"Pippin!" he cried and the damp men got out of his way as he rushed to the hobbit's side, wrapping him in a fierce hug.

"Easy, Sam! I'm half broken, you see," Pippin gasped. His wet hood fell back and the plucky Took gripped Sam's arm with a grin. "A dreadful night for travelling," he said once Sam let him go. "Gandalf is not much of a pony."

"A little courtesy, Peregrin," the wizard said, removing his own soaked grey wrap and allowing his white robes to flow once again. "I've heard less complaining from a sack-full of hungry dwarves."

"Well, that's only because you've yet to feed this poor dwarf, though I'm a hand or so smaller than Gimli, and less trouble for you to carry." Pippin shifted himself where he leaned against the sack and Sam could see it hurt him to breathe too deeply.

"Are you hurt, Mr. Pippin?"

"Oh, just a rib or two," he said, as if it were no trouble. Sam helped him loosen his wet wraps and beneath Sam could see Pippin was dressed in similar garb to that of the Gondorians, though the silver tree and black vestments were tailored to fit his exact size, which was strangely longer. His right shoulder was bound in bandages to keep his arm immobile. "I had some trouble with a troll," he explained.

"What sort of trouble?" Sam asked.

"He fell upon me, I'm afraid, but not before I stuck him good with my sword--wherever that's gotten to. I can't seem to keep track of things very well in this war."

"You fought in the war?" Sam asked, amazed. "The war with the City?"

Pippin nodded vigorously, but his eyes were grave. "I was in the City when the Enemy set fire to the first circle and brought down the doors. And then I went on the march to the Black Gate with what was left of the Western army."

Sam was stunned. He didn't think of any of them as taking up arms and riding out with the men like real soldiers. 

"Where's Mr. Merry?" Sam asked Pippin, since he had never seen one of the young hobbits without the other. 

Pippin's face fell. "I don't know, Sam," he said sadly and with great worry in his eyes. "I left him with the healers of Minas Tirith when we marched on Mordor. He was injured. Oh, Sam, he felled a wraith! You would not believe it if you saw it, but I did. He had a hard time with the black sickness as they call it, but he was getting better. The King came and laid hands upon him and he woke right up! But poor Merry was left behind because he could not fight anymore. I never should have gone and left him."

Sam took Pippin's hand and held it while the Took recovered himself. He knew well the pain of leaving one's companion behind. "Well, I suppose I'll just have to go looking for him," Pippin continued. "Miserable lout, he's probably coveting the lion's share of the City butteries. He's got a hand for finding such things as we did in IsengardDid you hear? We found quite a storage of leaf and fruits and"

Pippin went on for some time relating names of foods, people and places Sam could only guess at. It would be some days, he knew, before he would understand the half of it. It seemed the four of them had covered most of the map of Middle-earth these last months. Pippin related how after he had taken hurt upon the Battle Plain, he was found by riders of the Rohirrim who took him up on horseback, a painful experience. They cared for him in the deep forests until they were able to reconnect with Legolas' company and regroup at Henneth Annûn, a place still unknown to their foes. Horsemasters, he called them, and pointed to the men about the room with long unbraided hair. Merry had been a hobbit of the Mark, he said, sworn to King Théoden; and even more astounding, Pippin had become esquire to Denethor, Steward of Gondor, all of who, Pippin explained, were now deceased. Even their sons were lost--Éomer fell in the last debate and Faramir, he'd been left with Merry it would seem.

"I've heard much talk of kings these past days," said Sam. "But I've yet to meet one, though Gandalf says one is to arrive here soon."

"Oh, Sam, you silly gander. Don't you know? You've already met him. Gandalf's talking about Aragorn. He's the King of Gondor, or the rightful king anyway, and has been all this time; he's just being humble about it."

"Strider? Well, who would have thought it! Not I, and that's for certain. I weren't too warm to him straight off, you know, when we met in Bree."

"Yes, butwhat of Frodo, Sam?" Pippin asked, taking Sam back to the present. "Gandalf says he is with you, that you stayed together! All the way through Mordor, amazing!"

"He is here," Sam said, but was reluctant to say anything more.

"Do you think I can see him soon? Gandalf wouldn't say much about either of you since Legolas' company found me in the woods with the horsemen. I'd feared the worst. But you look well enough, though I daresay much thinner! That reminds me," he said. "I have something for Frodo, here in my pack. Help me get it."

Sam leaned over and lifted up a battered bag with a torn strap. "Untie it," Pippin said and Sam did. Within, wrapped in a cloak, shone a glint of silver. Sam immediately recognised it. 

"Oh!" Sam gasped. "Mr. Frodo's silver shirt! How did you come upon this?"

"A servant of the Dark Lord taunted us with it. He said they had taken Frodo prisoner. I'd feared the worst for you both. Oh, Sam, when can I see him?"

A hush fell over the room and Sam got up from his knees to see what had caused it. Something small was moving between the tall legs of the elves and men: Frodo.

"Mr. Frodo?" Sam called to him as he moved toward his master and took his hand. Legolas and Gimli came forward as well and bowed to him as did many of their wet company in awed silence. 

Frodo leaned into Sam, uncertain. Legolas lifted his fair face but his smile faded when his eyes met Frodo's. He soon lowered his head in sorrow. Gimli did the same, muttering something to himself. 

Frodo gripped Sam's hand. "Who are these strange people, Sam? Why are they staring at me? What did I do?"

***

It was a bitter shock for all concerned to see Frodo again. For Sam and Gandalf, their love for him had steeled them to much of what was missing in the hobbit's countenance. Pippin as well, with his unflappably chipper nature, seemed to take the drastic alteration in his cousin in stride and spent the remainder of the evening catching Frodo up on the names and characters of their many relations Frodo could no longer remember back home in the Shire. Frodo seemed amused by Pippin's animated blatherings and mentioned he felt Pippin seemed vaguely familiar to him, or perhaps he said that out of courtesy. But still, Sam knew the majority of those now arrived at Henneth Annûn mumbled and stared and asked questions among themselves of what had befallen the Ring-bearer.

Aragorn's host of Dúnedain arrived the next afternoon and the caves were becoming what a hobbit would call "comfortable." Sam and Frodo now shared their room with many of the horsemen and Pippin slept with them in their alcove, propped and adjusted by blankets and sacks to ease his ribs. Sam cared for them both, seeing to their needs. He was out late one night fetching Pippin another blanket, if he could, when he came upon Gandalf and Aragorn speaking in hushed voices.

"What do you make of Frodo's state?" Aragorn asked the wizard. They were sitting together at one of the cave's natural openings having a quiet talk in the shadows. 

"He is improving, but I dare not hope for much more. Frodo and the Ring became one, for a short period difficult to understand. But it seems to me a part of his mind has stayed with the Ring, and thus with the one who now wields it. Much of his mind is closed to me and I at first thought it lost, damaged beyond repair or recall. But I think not. I think he is not yet aware of who binds him in this cloud of forgetfulness. I can only hope it remains so."

Sam was struck dizzy with a gripping fear. _It can't be true! It can't! Mr. Frodo's only had a hard time of it. There's no evil hold on him; how could there be? I'd know it. I'd see it in his eyes. And when I get a chance, I'll tell Gandalf so!_

"There is something more," Sam heard Gandalf say to Aragorn. "I have been loath to speak of it, but I fear there was somehow a rift in the design of events as were foretold to me. I had long suspected Gollum had some part to play in Sauron's downfall. But to hear Sam tell it, he did little but plunge them into greater peril for all their trust. Still, he did lead them into Mordor, to their capture, and Sam to the armoury. My thoughts are this: the rings are key."

"But the rings have fallen sway under the One."

"Not yet, it seems. Not wholly. Saruman may have spoken true long ago in the White Council when he said we had time yet to counter Sauron should he find the One, even as he himself was seduced into darkness. There is time yet; I have some knowledge of this which I will not reveal until we are all assembled. What I know of myself and what Sam has told me of his use of the Dwarf rings, leads me to the dawning of a solution I had not dreamt of before. So little is known for certain of the workings of the Rings of Power. I do wish I had means of taking council with Galadriel, though she may refuse me even so."

"What is it that you would speak to her of?"

"Tomorrow night we shall gather in the cavern beyond the pool. I await Elrohir. He bears a secret which will make my words more clear. Be rested now, as much as you are able. I will need your strength and that of the elf and dwarf ere dawn of the next day."

And with those words Gandalf left Aragorn's side and Sam saw him pass by to take the stairs to the upper ledge where he would stand looking over the vale for many hours; his eyes seeing far, as far as the sea and the white mountains.

****

Before dawn rose on the next day, Sam woke to a firm touch on his shoulder. It was Gandalf bidding him to wake and dress and meet him in the main chamber.

"But, Mr. Frodo"

"Pippin can look after him, or indeed they can look after one another for a while. Your presence is greatly needed with us."

Sam took Gandalf's words to heart, but wondered at their significance just as he wondered and worried about what he'd overheard in his conversation with Aragorn. He wanted to keep an even closer eye on Frodo ever since, although aside from his master's general confusion, there was nothing to be alarmed about as far as he could tell. So he got up and dressed, but before he left the room of slumbering men and hobbits, he leaned over Pippin and woke him gently asking him to watch Frodo for him as he did not know how long he would be gone from his side, but he guessed a while.

****

A small assembly had gathered in the main room. Dawn had not yet risen and there were some new arrivals having a simple breakfast which they offered Sam as well. Sam took his meal among several elves he had not met before. They were tall and very fair, with dour expressions. High elves, he thought, and one he'd seen before, recognisable by his resemblance to Elrond, his father: Elrohir. His brother Elladan, Sam was informed by the elves who ate with him, had been felled by the spear of a great Southron Chieftain--Zut-ak whose warriors were responsible for the ambush and death of thousands of their fallen comrades, among them a Prince Imrahil and most of his loyal countrymen.

When they had eaten, Gandalf led them through the tunnels to the outer stairs and from there down through the fall's mists to the pool just as dawn began to break over the mountains. Beyond the pool was a narrow path cut into the side of the rock. They went along this wet stony way some yards until they came to a low opening in the cliffside. Gandalf lit the end of his staff and ducked in. The rest followed, the elves stooping low to fit inside a doorway that just cleared the top of Sam's curly head. Inside, was a natural cavern of limestone, wet with dripping ivory stalactites and colourful milky pools. A circle of stools had been provided in the centre of the high space. There was no light save Gandalf's staff and no opening other than the low door.

When all were seated, Gandalf asked the guardsmen outside to roll back the stone door, sealing them all in. Sam wasn't too certain why they needed to be shut in like that and was grateful his hobbit's nature allowed him to be comfortable in underground spaces. Gandalf set his staff behind his stool and the light, which had been overly bright at first, now dimmed to a dull blue glow as their eyes adjusted. Seated around Sam in addition to Gandalf were Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn of the Fellowship; Faramir's First and Second Lieutenants of the Rangers; two of the Dúnedain in their grey cloaks; Elrohir and five of his elvish host; and two of the long-haired horsemen: seventeen in all.

"Welcome," Gandalf said in greeting. "May the grace of the Valar protect us all as we have come to decide the fate of Middle-earth here at the onset of this Second Darkness. What words we speak within this cavern no others shall hear, for our future stands upon the brink of an abyss. We are all met here under the invitation of the Ithilien Rangers who have broken their vows of secrecy and solitude to allow the free races to seek sanctuary within their walls."

Gandalf then went on to introduce everyone and to let each captain or marshall present his position and surviving forces. Sam learned that Legolas was captain of the Dead Army (which he secretly hoped he'd never need to meet), Aragorn led a host of Dúnedain, Gandalf was with the Gondorian Rangers, Elrohir commanded the elves, and lastly, the Rohirrim now rode under the command of Arrus, fallen Éomer's chosen successor for the leadership of the Mark. All told, no more than fifteen-hundred men and elves remained able to bear arms.

"There is one among us now who has seen the very heart of our enemy's stronghold. I will let him come forward now and tell his tale for all," said Gandalf, inviting Sam to stand.

Sam got to his feet and began his tale from the parting of the Fellowship to the climbing of the large stair at the height of the Dark Tower. He was explaining the manner in which he'd come to be within the armoury when Gandalf gently gestured for him to reveal the hidden chain he wore under his tunic. 

Sam lifted the silver chain from around his neck and let the three rings fall to the end of its length. All who were assembled gasped and murmured in wonder.

"Why, these are the rings of my kinsmen!" exclaimed Gimli, rising from his seat to peer more readily at the treasure Sam held up before them. "A wonder it is to behold them. We had thought the seven long lost, devoured by dragons."

"No, Gimli," said Gandalf. "It has been known to the wise for some years that Sauron had recovered the three, but until Sam came upon them, none had been able to locate them. It would seem our Enemy has been gathering an arsenal of ancient weaponry since the dawn of time. These rings are not the only artifacts Sam discovered. Tell them, Sam."

Sam looked at the three rings, their faceted green gems reflecting Gandalf's blue light upon their shadowy faces. "Well, there were lots of swords and shields and sharp polished hand-weapons I couldn't give the right name to. But I saw a magic stone there in the centre of it all. I looked in it and saw visions of the war and the City on fire."

"Sam" said Aragorn with an air of understanding. "It was you I saw in the palantír, the eve I bore it onto the battlefield. I had thought a new enemy was spying upon us, hooded and unknown to me. But I understand now it was you. Better I had not known the truth, than to think of you and Frodo trapped in that loathsome place. How was it that you came to be free of Barad-dûr?"

Sam warmed the rings in his hand and retold the council of his desperate errands and labours within the Tower. He told of how the rings could be used separate or combined to achieve various aims, be it secrecy or the commanding of fellbeasts.

"The dragonlords" mumbled Gimli. "It is a hard truth to bear that they still exist and serve the dark powers. My people had thought them lost long ago at the dawning of the Third Age. Folly it is, that they have remained in his service. But to ride these beasts! That must have been a grand adventure. Tell me, how did the world look from so high above?"

"Dark and filled with smoke," Sam said solemnly. "I wish I had seen it on a better day, or that the creature who brought us out of Mordor did not have to give her life for it."

"It is a blessing beyond our farthest hopes that you and Frodo managed to escape," said Aragorn. "With the heaviest of hearts did I watch you disappear together on the Eastern Shore alone. But tell me now of this sword, Sam; the sword you saw the Mouth of Sauron carry from the armoury."

"It was long and black with a fancy scabbard of jools and knotted tooling. The orcs said it was the sword of the Golden King, of long ago. I didn't know rightly what they meant."

Aragorn lowered his eyes a moment and Gandalf leaned toward him, whispering some quick words. "It is true then," Aragorn said, heavily. "The sword of Ar-Pharazôn, the last of the Númenorean kings, is in the hands of the Enemy. Dark is our hour, indeed, if our foe is so armed."

"What is this sword that you speak of? The Rohirrim do not know this legend," said Arrus.

"Ar-Pharazôn the Golden was a Númenorean King of the Second Age," said Gandalf. "He was prideful and foolish, deeming himself the rightful ruler of all the world, worthy of the Gift of the Noldor; their endless life. He defeated Sauron in Umbar and took him prisoner back to the Isle of Elenna, the realm of Númenor. But in his captivity Sauron was seductive and spoke in the King's ear, tricking him into raising a fleet of ships to invade the very Undying Lands themselves. The Valar would not abide this brazen act and called upon the One to cast Númenor into the seas, forever changing the world. Only the Golden King's sword now survives in the hands of the One who was his undoing."

"I understand now why the Dark One waits upon the Citadel," said Aragorn resignedly. "He waits for me to venture forth to the fallen throne and strike blade upon blade. But there will be no other sword to match his now, not even Narsil." 

Gandalf raised a hand and let the light of his staff illuminate the high reach of the cavern. "Despair not! Our enemy has the advantage, this is plain, but he does not hold all weapons of power. Look here upon my hand and you will see revealed a secret long-kept out of any knowledge." They all blinked into the light and lo, upon Gandalf's hand flared a ring of golden fire.

"Narya!" Elrohir exclaimed. "How can it be?"

Gandalf lowered his hand as the flames died and the bright red jewel of the elven Ring of Fire was revealed. "Narya was entrusted to me many ages ago by Círdan himself. Long have I held it in absolute secret until this night. It was thought the ring would be best protected from our Enemy if it remained out of all knowing, but our time for waiting has long passed. We must stand up and show ourselves and all our hidden strengths."

"Then if it is to be so, look here! For I bear a gift recently bestowed upon me by my father," said Elrohir and he, too, held up his fair hand and upon his ring-finger whirled a white band bearing a clear sapphire. "Behold Vilya! May this sister-stone bind in power to that of Narya for what good or ill may come to us in our final days."

"But truly these rings are of little use to us in these times," said the First Lieutenant of Gondor. "The Nameless One has dominion over all who possess such trinkets of folly."

Gandalf looked to the man sharply. "Indeed, it would appear so, but you have heard all of Sam's tale now twice and yet he was able to wield the three rings in aid for his own escape and that of Frodo's from the very clutches of the Enemy. It is my belief that we have time yet to counter him with the purity of grace these rings still possess. Saruman had guessed as much in the days of our storming of Dol Guldur in Mirkwood. There is time yet before the rings of power fall back under the influence of the One. But we must act swiftly and suddenly."

"But what of the Nine?" asked Aragorn. "Our five cannot over-balance the force of the One and the Nazgûl who carry the rings of men. Yet one has fallen, though none have discovered what has come of the ring of the Witch-King."

"I believe I have!" said Legolas suddenly, getting to his feet. "My company of the dead have been keeping careful watch upon the mass of Southron forces camped outside Ithilien. Their chieftain, Zut-ak, wears the crown of the sorcerer king upon his head like a trophy as is the way of their kind. He bears the heavy Úlairi sword also. I did not think to look for a ring, but perhaps he wears it as well. The Nazgûl-lord was felled within the melee of their host and that of the Rohirrim when King Théoden fell upon the Pelennor fields."

"'Tis true," said Arrus of the Mark. "We were much bent with grief for our fallen lord and sister. We thought not to see what our enemy might have left behind, though I saw him melt into smoke and dust, leaving his vestments behind. It must be that the crown and ring and sword also fell in that same place later to be overrun by the Harad-men."

"We should ride out tonight!" said Legolas excitedly. "And take back this fell ring if it will but work to our advantage."

Gandalf nodded solemnly. "If the most powerful of the Nine can be retrieved, then we must seek it. But I fear the rings of the Nazgûl will be no match for mortal hands. They were seduced to darkness long ago. I fear their potency and influence will be swift. But in this fight against all evil, even the most dangerous roads must be taken."

"If the dwarvish rings may be used once more to cloak you in secret, Sam," said Legolas. "then I would ask you to take up Sting once more and ride out with me to aid us in this task."

Sam looked to Legolas and then to Gandalf; his uncertainty plain upon his face. He found he could not say what he wished to say, so Gandalf spoke for him. "To have Samwise rejoin this fight must be of his own free-will and choosing. Fate, it would seem, has brought him to this precipice once again. I will not ask you, Sam, to risk all once more. You've endured more suffering than what Middle-earth would ask of any of her children. I would advise only that you search your heart thoroughly before you give answer."

Sam put the chain of rings back around his neck and tucked the jewels under his collar. They felt strangely warm against his skin, as if they had always belonged to him. "I will think about it," he said, though he was torn with both the desire to save his country and the need to remain at his master's side. 

"Can anyone here yet tell me" Sam asked in a small voice. "what has happened to the Shire?"

Faramir's lieutenant shifted his feet and spoke quietly. "We have received word of a massive host of orcs, wildmen and other foul creatures heading north upon the old Anórien road. They were moving away at great speed. We have not the men left to follow them. They had many provisions with them. It is thought they mean to run long, hard and fast."

"Oh," said Sam as his throat tightened with grief. "How long until theywell, if they?"

"A few weeks, yet, Sam," said Gandalf gently. "Do not give up. We may be few, but we've got a fight yet left in us!"

Silence fell over all assembled as they sank within their own thoughts. Sam knew eyes were on him, yet still, he could not give answer. Sam looked to the stone-covered door. He wanted desperately to get back to his master and to know that he was well.

"Come, the day grows towards noontime," said Gandalf. "We all have much to think about, though I remain firm in that the knowledge of these rings must be kept secret from all who remain outside this room." All joined in their agreement of this edict as the stone was rolled back on their hidden meeting hall, rewelcoming the dim light of day.


	5. Part Three: Chapter Five

V

When Sam returned to the caves he found Frodo and Pippin warming their hands over a brazier of coal in one of the antechambers presently serving as housing for Elrohir's company of elves. Frodo and a few of the elves were speaking quietly to one another, in Elvish. Frodo's voice sounded small and sweet, falling slowly from his tongue as he spoke.

Sam stood, staring at his master in awe. Frodo was still much too thin to his eyes, yet his face appeared to be lit from within now, with a warmth that heartened Sam that his master might come back into his own, one patient day at a time. Pippin saw him enter and got up gingerly to come join him at the far end of the room. The young hobbit looked worried and Sam's heart thumped at the thought his master might have had some sort of spell in his absence.

"What is it, Mr. Pippin?" Sam whispered, not wanting to disturb his master's conversation. "Is Mr. Frodo well?"

Pippin nodded his head, but pulled Sam close so he might speak to his ears alone. "He's fine, Sam. He's still in love with the elves as you can see. They've been sitting with him for over an hour now, who knows what they're talking about. I was beginning to feel useless. But tell me your news. The men are making to ride out tonight; they've been bustling about all morning. They won't tell me anything and I know you weren't called away by chance."

Sam looked aside, uncomfortable with his oath of secrecy in the face of his friend.

"You'll have to pardon me, Mr. Pippin, but I'm not allowed to say, exactly. Gandalf and the others talked over a good many things. I was worried about leaving Mr. Frodo for so long."

"You needn't be overly concerned, Sam. My cousin's stronger than you think. That isn't what troubles me the most," Pippin said, lowering his voice even more. "I had a chance to speak with some of the men this morning while Frodo slept. I know now how the Ring fell into evil and how you were both taken to the Tower," he said, with dismay. "I know Frodo can't remember much right now, but if he improves, and I hope he doeswhat I'm wanting to say is, he mustn't know what happened in that mountain. It would kill him to know."

Sam caught Pippin's gaze, conveying how clearly he'd taken this knowing into his heart where it would lay forever unknown to the one person who mattered most in the world to him. Sam could well remember his master beaten and burned, a small shadow before the fiery precipice. The grief caught his throat and he nodded sorrowfully. 

Pippin brushed his arm in sympathy. "I'm so sorry Merry and I were not with you. You had to be the bravest of all of us, Sam. Frodo couldn't have hoped for better."

Sam took Pippin's hand and held it a moment until he saw Frodo turn about, welcoming his return with a smile. The elves got to their feet, bowing and leaving the hobbits to themselves. Sam went to his master and sat by his side at the coals. Frodo moved close, leaning his head upon his shoulder.

"Where did you go, Sam?"

Sam slipped an arm about him and kissed the top of his head. "Not far, Mr. Frodo. Gandalf wanted to have a chat with me, is all."

Frodo closed his eyes and yawned. "What did you talk about?"

Sam looked back for Pippin and saw he had left the room

"Oh, many thingsabout the fighting and the armies and such. It was dark and cold. I missed you."

Frodo sighed pleasantly and settled his cheek upon the folds of Sam's cloak. His breath came slow and even and Sam thought he'd gone to sleep until his lips parted and he said: "What does Gandalf plan to do? Can you tell me, dear Sam?"

Sam felt an odd shiver run through him. Something about the way Frodo asked this question resonated in an queer way. "Are you feeling well, master?"

Frodo seemed to wake more and raised his head to look at him. His master's large blue eyes were sleepy, but clear of the fog that had dulled them to confusion not long ago. "I am feeling much better. Each day, it seems. I just wish I could put all my memories back together. There's so much that's gone and what remains can be so confusingand frightening, at times."

"Don't you fret over the bad memories, Mr. Frodo. I'll hold them for you, until you're well. Our story is safe," he said tapping his chest. "Right here." 

Frodo touched Sam's chest reverently before relaxing back against him. "You have to leave me, soon; I know," he said.

Sam stiffened. "Who said I was going to leave?"

Frodo shook his head. "Don't be cross; no one told me. I can see it in your eyes."

Sam felt sorrow fill him as he held Frodo fast to his side, turning his lips to his hair. "I don't know what to do, master," he confessed. "They need me to help themto go and ride out for the Enemy's camp tonight. Our home, Mr. Frodo, it's in some trouble I dare not think too closely on. It might help if I go, but I wish it weren't all up to me. But I think Gandalf would say these things don't always come to the ones who look for it, if you follow me. I do have the rings, after all. It's like I'm supposed to keep on going as far as my legs will carry me. And I would, were it not for you. I won't take a step if I can't know you're safe and not needing of anything."

Frodo pressed his cheek warmly to Sam's and the touch eased him some. "Please don't worry, Sam. Pippin is here now if I need someone close-by. Go, if it will help the Shire. I do so want to see my home again, if only to learn it anew."

"Sam?" 

Sam turned about. Pippin had approached from behind them, holding a hauberk and surcoat of black and silver. He kneeled and laid the vestments on the stones before Sam. "This was my armour from the tower guard of Minas Tirith. I offer it to you now, Sam," Pippin said, his eyes shining with a fierce loyalty to the livery he'd come to bear upon the battlefields. "Frodo and I can't fight anymore. We need you to go in our stead. _I_need you," he said with pain. "I need you to find Merry for me."

Sam's lowered his head. In all his concerns for his master, he had forgotten to think of Mr. Merry. Was he chained and caged now as Frodo had been? What if he himself were as Mr. Pippin was now, injured and in pain, and Frodo still hidden far away within a cloud of shadow?

Sam reached to lift the mail, running the chains over his fingers. The rings were cold, thick and strong. "I'll go," he said. With a heavy heart Sam let go of Frodo, who gazed up at him proudly, as he rose to begin his preparations to rejoin a battle that would not end until the last sunset of the world. 

****

The surcoat was too long, by half a foot. Aragorn knelt before Sam, cutting off the hem with his game-knife while Pippin held up an oil lamp for light. The clothes and mail felt heavy and foreign to the back of an ordinary hobbit used to little more pomp than a patched woollen coat.

"Sam, you will not be permitted to ride out tonight bearing these emblems without one last element," said Aragorn as he ripped off the last of the strip of cloth.

"What is that?" asked Sam.

"To bear the White Tree, you must swear fealty to the regent of Gondor."

"Oh!" Sam said, embarrassed. "I forgot. What do I do?"

Aragorn smiled. "Where is your faithful sword?"

"Here," said Frodo, returning from the tunnels carrying Sting in its scabbard. "And something I forgot had been returned to me." Sam could see the shimmer of silver draped over his arm. "That heavy mailshirt needn't slow you down, Sam."

"But, Mr. Frodo! I can't wear such a fine thing. My gaffer'd have a fit!"

"But he isn't here now, Sam. And I insist."

With Frodo and Pippin's help, Sam allowed himself to be undressed and redressed in the finest clothes he knew he'd ever have chance to wear. The dwarf rings came first upon their silver chain followed by a hastily tailored leather tunic. The mithril shirt was next and it went over his head, falling from Frodo's hands like a rain of shimmery starlight. The surcoat with its silver tree was belted fast over both and hung now properly to the knee over some cut and cinched trousers borrowed from the men. Sting came next and at last Aragorn raised up the winged helm and set it upon Sam's head where it fit like a glove.

"You're a proper soldier now, Samwise. Draw your sword and lay it at my feet."

Sam did so, Sting singing as it was drawn once again from its scabbard. Sam placed it on the stones before the undeclared King and knelt upon one knee, a little wobbly in his new vestments.

"The helmet," whispered Pippin.

"Huh?" 

"Take it off and put it under your arm," Pippin said with a grin, which was soon shared by Frodo.

Sam did and lowered his head as Aragorn took up Sting and lay the blade upon his left shoulder.

"Samwise Gamgee, son of Hamfast, do you swear to uphold the honour of the Citadel by speaking the Oath of Service after me?"

"I do, sir," Sam said and spoke these words after Aragorn: "Here do I swear fealty and service to Gondor and to Lord Aragorn, son of Arathorn, heir of Isildur and of his Kingship; to speak and to be silent, in peace and in war, in living or dying, from this hour henceforth, until my Lord release me or death take me, or until the world end. So say I, Samwise Gamgee, hobbit of the Shire."

"Well said," said Aragorn as he raised the sword to touch his right shoulder. "Rise. You are now Samwise Gamgee, Hobbit at Arms of the Citadel. You shall be bound to me and my call to war."

"Yes, sir," said Sam, still kneeling and blushing all over. "I've never had such a long fancy title before, siror should I be saying majesty or the like?"

Aragorn chuckled and held out a hand. "On your feet, Sam. Tonight, I command you to ride out with Captain Legolas. I will tell him you are ready."


	6. Part Three: Chapter Six

It's true! I'm finally working on this story again. My apologies for keeping you all waiting so long. I plan to barrel on through it to the end this time. Cheer me on!

Now, cue our Hero!Sam....

VI

The trees flew by in a blur of shadow and whispering pine in a darkness that was nearly complete. The moon was no more then a forgotten coal burning under a blanket of shifting black cloud. Sam rode before Gandalf upon Shadowfax, his fingers gripping the soft mane of the white stallion. Arod galloped at their side, Legolas at the reins and Gimli jostled about behind, grunting and murmuring complaints into the chill night air. 

Sam had never ridden a full-sized steed and would have been scared out of his wits for the speed of these animals were it not for the calm wizened regard the mighty horse gave him before allowing Sam to mount and be born upon his wide back. Saddleless, Sam could feel the heart and muscle of the beast pulse and drive beneath him as they rode hard on a long-forgotten road, the break in the brush only a suggestion for clever hooves to find and follow.

They road for an hour or more before Gandalf bid Shadowfax to slow to a walk, puffs of steam issuing from the horse's mighty snout. They were nearing the edge of the wood and between the dwindling trunks Sam could see the distant red flicker of bonfires and hear the rumbling of many thousand footfalls and primal cries of the Southron army blanketing the war fields just beyond.

Gandalf checked his steed and Legolas rode along side. "Here we will wait," the wizard said quietly. "Until the dead are assembled."

The Dead. Sam shook at the very mention of them. He'd not seen any of the dwimmerlaiks since his one chance encounter near the stream before he and Frodo were found in Ithilien. Only Arod and Shadowfax had left Henneth Annûn together. The Rangers and Aragorn had ridden to the southern rim of the forest to protect the road from invasion should Sam's secret errand prove revealed and the Enemy rise to seek their secret haven in the caves. Sam could not see the dead, but he could feel them about him, shifting under the pines, stirring chills in their inky wake. _I wouldn't go walking alone in these woods for any money, _thought Sam. _There's something unnatural wandering about this place, and it ain't no flock of sheep._

"How I hate these late meetings," grumbled Gimli, voicing his own displeasure. "Why did you have to volunteer to captain the Dead in the first place?" he asked his companion.

"Hush," chastened Legolas. "Do not startle them; they are beginning to form. Look to the south, see how they raise their banners now to the night sky."

Sam looked despite his shivering. Wisps of pale colour were forming out of the very air. Long thin banners boasting standards long lost to time were adorning the lower branches of the trees. Their bearers also began to form--tall ephemeral men and horses, gathering like dew. Their faces were grim and frightening, yet Sam did pity them, for in their grey eyes rested a weariness beyond measure. Several hundred there looked to be circling their position. None could say how many of the Oathbreakers had followed Aragorn from their battle in the South, but to Sam they stretched from one end of his sight to the other.

"It is impossible to number the Dead," Legolas had said at their council. "They shift and scatter like twilight rain. But there are many and they are loyal to us."

A portion of them had formed fully now, and to Sam's dread, a rank broke away from the others and approached step by soundless step. Every instinct in his bones told Sam to flee, but he gripped the hilt of Sting and held his ground as Legolas addressed them as his own kind.

"Servants of the King, I command you! Stand with your sight upon the battle plains. Onto them we shall send one of our own in secret. Let him pass, for he will be as a shadow himself. His errand is secret, and we must hold to the forests. Yet we will burst forth with swords drawn should our friend be in need."

"What is this shadow you would call hither?" hissed the commander of the Dead. His helm was cracked and his nose eaten away by rot or wind, but his voice spoke clearly and Sam cringed to hear it.

"There is one among us who holds a weapon of the enemy of us all. He will use it this once to pass your ranks and move out upon the plain. Make way for him!"

The rank of the Dead flickered in and out of Sam's vision. But when they reformed, a way was made between them under the pines. Legolas dismounted and came to Sam's side and placed his hand upon his knee.

"Follow my eyes, Samwise. Far off beyond the edge of the trees, can you see the bonfire that rises to half the height of the far mountains?"

Sam squinted into the dark, and yes, indeed, one of the bonfires roared higher then the rest in the mass encampment. "I see it."

"Good. Keep it in your sight as you go. Beyond it you will find a gathering of beasts, Oliphants many stories high. There is one among them adorned with a grand Battle Harness both taller and heavier than the rest. At its peak there is pitched a red and black tent. This is the private dwelling of Zut-ak, the one who bears our prize. His army will be retiring from their feasting and celebrations as the evening wanes. He will retire as dawn approaches and they will call the beast to its knees to let down the ladder for the Chieftain and his guard to climb up. That is when you must make your move. Understand?"

Sam nodded grimly. As much as he had wished to see one of the magnificent creatures up close, clambering up one with invisible hands amidst an army of spear-throwing warriors was not what he had dreamt of. But then his thoughts returned to his master, waiting behind the falls in the protection of stone, dreaming of their home and he reached within his collar to bring forth the three rings.

"I understand, Captain. Now, if you could give me a hand down, I'll be on my way."

Legolas assisted him, and once his feet sank into the damp fern, Sam slid the silver bands upon the fingers of his left hand and faded like smoke into the shadows.

* * *

It is said a hobbit can make his footfalls silent at need and Sam was no exception to this. Once he cleared the trees, he made his way steadily across the plain towards the fires. The ground was trampled and broken in places, stuck with arrows and stinking with forgotten corpses. Sam could see in the dimness where the enemy had gathered up the dead and burned them in high mounds--both elf, man, horse and orc together. But their work had been careless and the open ground still stank with the black decay of death.

Ahead, a group of Haradrim paced the perimeter of their camp, keeping watch on the nearby forests and speaking to one another in a strange guttural tongue. Sam took care to avoid them by sneaking along their eastern flank where the fires were fewer and less voices could be heard murmuring into the darkness. Still, he kept his eye upon the brightest of the bonfires and the low grunting of the large beasts tethered just beyond. There were nearly a dozen of the massive beasts, standing like great houses upon thick swaying legs.

Something brushed by Sam's leg and he leapt aside, startled. Something long and light floated away from him in the night breeze. It was a feather, as long as a man and as wide as Sam's chest. It floated back to the earth and there stuck into the weeds. Sam couldn't help but wonder at it. He kept his head about him as he went over to have a closer look. The shaft was light in his vanished hands as he lifted it and turned it over. The colour was brown and gold, glinting dully in the sparse moonlight.

It's the wing of a hawk or perhaps an eagle, Sam reasoned. But such an eagle! Bilbo used to tell stories about such creatures, long ago, flying high over the mountains. Maybe the windlords had come to fight their own battle in this war.

__

Sam did not tarry long and put his find aside; he needed to make a decision about where he was going to enter the inner circle of men. The Haradrim were scattered out from the centre in large groups, some walking about, but many more lying upon the ground, resting from a long day of feasting. The smoke from their fires carried the scent of roasted meat. If Sam didn't know better he'd say it smelled much like partridge.

He went slower the closer he came to the men and when he could skirt them no longer, crouched behind a boulder to draw Sting. In his ring-charmed fist the blade was utterly invisible. These were men, not the orcs the elves had charmed the steel to respond to. He was grateful for this, for now he could go among his foes with weapon drawn.

His sword in hand, Sam passed into the first ring of firelight. There in the glow of flame he could make out the prints of his feet, pressing into the loose earth, but nothing more. _Let's hope these villains mistake my trail for one of their own, _he thought and moved past their sleeping forms, stepping around spears and painted shields left out carelessly upon the ground. The Haradrim did not carry shelter and slept out in the open with only a animal skin or two among them to lie upon. Some slept while seated, their spear still in hand as their heads nodded and dropped to their chests. 

These men were a strange sight to Sam who had only seen the occasional Breelander cross his homeland before he left the Shire. Gondorians were one thing, tall and noble, but these men where like their very opposite. Dark-skinned they were with many rings piercing the flesh of their brows, noses and ears. They wore little clothing and instead adored themselves with strings of bones and mummified feet and heads of small animals and birds. Some who still walked about had collected shiny helms and shields of Gondor to wear upon their heads and breasts as trophies. The war-gear of the elves it would seem was not a part of their grim collection.

As Sam passed by the sleepers and came closer to the centre-most bonfire, he found more of the giant bird feathers scattered across the ground. These were of many sizes--from wing, tail and belly. Bloodied down stuck to his toes as he crouched and darted through the increasing number of men. Some had brought drums and sticks and were beating out a hard rhythm while others shrieked and pounded the earth with their feet. They danced about the bonfire rising bright and yellow before Sam's eyes. A large black shape lay half in the flames and the men were upon it, stabbing it and tearing away its flesh. The fire danced and Sam could see now the wing and belly of a great bird, plucked and blackened in the smoking heat. Its head was gone, but Sam felt sick in his heart that here had fallen one of the eagles that had been so kind to Bilbo in his wandering days, now reduced to a scorched carcass torn to pieces to feed an army.

Beyond the roasting eagle a tight group of men sat gathered, close in talk. Sam gave the dancers a wide berth as he came around, keeping low and quiet as he observed them. Four of the largest men Sam had ever seen sat before the fire, a ring of black bird bones at their feet. They were passing a strange cup between them, drinking from it and chanting between draughts. The light caught upon the vessel and Sam could see it was the lower beak of the bird. The upper beak was worn upon the head of the largest of the four men. And upon his neck, almost buried in strings of bones and claws, Sam saw the glint of a large silver ring.

Is this the one I'm to get? Sam wondered, realising no one had described to him what the Witch-king's ring might look like. _I must have it right. If it ain't the right ring, it's got to be the right man. He's bigger than ol' Tom and his eyes are like two dark pits. _Not for the first time was Sam grateful for the rings that hid him. He stepped back from the light of the fire and kneeled to watch and wait.

* * *

Sam kneeled for an hour or more. The Chieftain and his men kept to their own council as they drank and chanted and drew strange symbols upon the ground with their long spears. Sam shifted his legs, growing stiff and cold in the long night, hoping that Legolas and Gandalf were still lying in wait under the trees and listening and watching the circle of the bonfire. He knew both were gifted with long-sight and perhaps they could sense his presence within this foreign host. Gandalf, certainly, could read his thoughts as he had done before; and now that bond was made stronger by the connecting power of the rings. Narya should know, Sam felt, if the Three were ever to leave his hands.

In the periphery of his mind's wanderings, Sam could still catch glimpses of ghostly ring visions: treetops, stone towers, and a blackness he dared not let come fully into his mind. Once or twice he thought he saw the face of Pippin, but cast that notion aside as nonsense. Sam rubbed his eyes. He was growing tired and the evening would be surrendering to dawn soon--if it came at all.

At last, when the horizon began to lighten into a hint of grey, the Chieftain gestured to a guardsman who held a long horn. The man took up the horn and blew a succession of notes, echoing across the plains. The Oliphants who were tethered by their ankles to one another, groaned and bellowed in response. The animals began to shift their weight about and their long heavy chains dragged along the ground, stirring up clouds of dust.

Sam stood and held the tail of his cloak over his nose and mouth, blinking into the dust. The largest of the beasts was moving forward from the rest toward the fire. It stood nearly twice as high as the longest flame and yet did not seem to fear the fire. The horn blew again and several men rushed under the beast to strike its thick-skinned ankles with long poles. Shouts added to the sound of the horn and the Oliphant bellowed, throwing out its truck, casting a long shadow that reached clear over to Sam. _They're going to coax it down to its knees now, Samwise. So stop your gaping and get alongside it!_

This was easier thought than done, for there was no way of telling just how a creature of this size would go about kneeling. Sam ran around the handlers and dodged their poles, getting as close as he dared to the underside of the beast, keeping one eye on the Chieftain and the other on the Oliphant's massive legs as the animal began to bend at the leg joints.

Quicker than Sam thought possible, the animal's belly was on the ground in a rush of dust that made his eyes blur and sting. The Oliphant tossed its massive head and tusks about in agitation. There were a dozen men or more occupying the Harness upon its back. A pair of them threw over a bamboo ladder that unrolled to drop at the Chieftain's feet. Zut-ak and his four men began to climb one after another and Sam wondered if he shouldn't follow post-haste. But there was a number of men in his path now who had come forward to hold the ladder down taut and steady. He'd never get past them. Sam's heart began to pound. _What to do? There's no getting up there without a bit of rope and there's not a bit of rope to spare for a hobbit to climb through all those hands. I might be invisible, but I'm not made of air. _

In his uncertainty, Sam hesitated far too long and the rope ladder was being hauled up even before the last man had climbed more than a few rungs. Sam ran for it, just missing the leg of a guard. He stabbed Sting back into its scabbard and made a leap for the end of the ladder and missed, landing hard and taking a bite of dirt in his teeth.

He sat up and cursed himself, wondering what on earth he was to do when something hit him in the back. Instinctively, he grasped Sting and swung around, lopping off a good foot of nothing other than rope. Rope! One long continuous wrap of it had fallen seemingly from the sky. Sam looked up just in time to dodge the man who came repelling down its length, two more behind him. With the Chieftain settling in atop the Oliphant with his own crew, some now had to come off, and the straight rope was the quickest trip down. 

Sam grabbed it when the men had jumped off, and wrapping his legs about it, began to climb.


	7. Part Three: Chapter VII

VII

The rope was thick and sharp with rough twine that bit Sam's hands as he pulled himself up towards the Oliphaunt's battle harness, yard by painful yard. He'd made it no more than an oak's height from the ground when the horns blew once more and the men with long poles began to shout and thrust against the thick belly of the beast to get it to rise. 

Sam wrapped his wrists and ankles tight about the rope as he was pitched from side to side and slammed into the stone-like hide of the Oliphaunt's flank, bruising his face and rattling his head until the creature finally found its legs. Sam panted over the rapid beating of his heart as the ground fell away below in a swirl of dust. He hung there some moments, trying not to look down, when he felt a hard tug on the rope from above. 

A guard had come to the pointed edge of the platform to begin the retrieval of the landing ropes. He tugged and Sam held on as the rope dragged him over the hide, scraping at his elven cloak. The guard spat out a foreign curse, yanking with all his strength. He could not fathom why the rope failed to yield. The guard's hoisting was growing more urgent and Sam knew he could not force his arms to hold on much longer. 

Sam kicked out with his feet until he could brace himself on the hide and then gave a swing out to the right, then left, then right again, connecting with the bamboo base of the structure. By blind luck Sam managed to get his leg hooked around a portion of the frame. The rope man was still tugging more frantically, as it appeared the very coils had come alive. Hanging sideways with one hand still wrapped in the rope, Sam whispered a plea to the good gentle earth below and let go. 

The torchlight and dust swirls swam in Sam's vision as he hung all backwards from his right leg, his head rushing with blood. His foot was secure, but his hands could grasp nothing but slippery hair and coarse hide. It was an unfortunate predicament that would soon grow worse as his Gondorian helmet came loose from his head and fell off into the darkness below with a clang. Sam stilled his scrambling and forced himself to think. _If you ain't got a hold with your hands, Sam, try your feet. _

Sam took a breath and twisted himself so his left leg came free from where it had been pinned behind his trapped leg. Feeling about with his toes, Sam managed to slip his foot and calf into the folds of hide that lay under the bamboo rigging. Wishing he'd spent more summers hanging by his knees from tree branches, Sam grunted, curling himself up until he could grasp a loose strand of wide reed-like grass that bound the bamboo trunks together and pulled himself up and into the shadows of the under-rigging. 

Sore and choked with dust, Sam gathered his strength where he sat, his rump upon the bamboo beam, feet dangling, and gave his situation some thought. Above he could hear the men moving about, opening and closing the long flaps that sheltered the Chieftain's tent. The flooring lay just over Sam's head. It was made of tough hides drawn taut between the main bamboo shafts in a crisscross pattern. Sam thought if he waited for the men to settle in he might have a chance at climbing the rest of the way up and slipping through a seam without bumping into anyone. He hoped the Chieftain slept alone. 

As the noises of the men grew quieter, Sam became aware of another sound. It was low and steady and when he leaned towards the Oliphaunt's side, he could hear the thump of the beast's massive heart. Fascinated, Sam pressed his ear close until the very hairs of the animal pricked his cheek. Below the thump of the heart was the deep whoosh and flow of the beast's lungs, big as the mill-wheel back home and twice as powerful. Outside, the flap of the animal's great ears fanned the air, stirring cooling currents through the framework where Sam sat. 

"Aye, you're a fine creature, indeed, " Sam said fondly, giving the beast a pat. "'Tis a shame you've got yourself tied up with this lot. If I had a handsome plot back home I'd see to it that you'd come home with me." 

Sam spoke these words to ease his mind, but the mention of home only stirred the sick fear in him that he would never see the gardens of the Shire again. 

"This is no time for fanciful thoughts, now," he told himself. "You're a soldier at war, Samwise. A hobbit-at-arms who's got no business herding Oliphaunts or the like. It's your business to keep your sword and your head sharp." 

He said this all under his breath, but it did not go unheard. A long shadow passed below the rigging and Sam jumped, rising to his feet within the framework and placing a hand on the hilt of Sting. To his amazement, a huge eyeless mouth appeared, snaking up through the bamboo and rising before him where it exhaled a blast of grass-scented air. _Lor' help me,_ Sam thought, as the beast he'd been so ready to adopt gave Samwise Gamgee a good sniffing. 

The snout huffed over Sam's surcoat and trousers. The fleshy lip of this two-nostriled snake reached out like two thumbs to pat his chain mail, belt and cloak. 

"Shoo!" hissed Sam as the snout tickled the curly hair on his head. "Be gone! That's just hobbit you're nosing. Nothing to get bothered with. I mean you no harm. Be gone!" 

The snout blew out another blast of air that rattled the hides above Sam's head and near knocked him off his perch. Sam gave a grunt and the snout came right up to face him, nose to nose. The dark pair of holes drew in the air around Sam's face, making him feel as if he were about to be sucked down a drain-hole. 

"Now that's quite enough," he said and pushed the snout gently away only to have it return the playful push, straight in the chest, near knocking Sam off his footing. He had to do something fast to draw off the snout's curiosity before he got toppled right out to the ground. Or worse, picked up! Feeling about his trousers and pockets, Sam found a bit of sticky eagle down still clinging to his cuff. He plucked it and when the snout made another inhaling pass, tossed the fluff right in. 

The reaction was swift. The snout pulled out faster than Sam could see, with a rattle of the bamboo. Sam heard a huge whoosh building somewhere deep within the beast and wrapped his wrists in the loose reeds to hang on. The shudder that shook the whole harness in its moorings was not half as bad as the blast of sound that accompanied the Oliphaunt's sneeze. Sam's ears rang from it as he wriggled himself loose and began to climb. If any of the men had been sleeping in the tent above, they weren't any longer, but maybe in the confusion an invisible hobbit might be able to crawl up and in unseen. 

Sam opened a parting in the hides and pushed his head through for a look. He'd come up in a heavily draped corner of the Chieftain's tent. The men had rushed out of the space at the sneeze to shout and point spears at the Oliphaunt's driver who made wild gestures with his arms and pointed at the head of the animal which had now gone back to grazing. All this Sam saw through the open tent flaps as he pulled himself up through the floor and found a safe spot behind the drapery to sit and wait the men out. 

A guard came back to his post at the inside of the flaps while the tallest one, the Chieftain Legolas had named Zut-Ak, pushed his way back in and sat himself upon the fur-covered throne, closing his eyes. The throne he rested on resembled a short fur-covered couch with a crude stool for putting up one's feet to sleep in a half-seated position. It did not look terribly comfortable to Sam when he eyed the wrapped animal bone construction. There were furs from many animals sewn together by hide strips and bound to the frame with dried sinew. Skulls of large unnamed beasts hung swinging from the ceiling framework, and spears and shields of the Harad clan were cast about the floor along with weaponry bearing the White Tree. Some of the coveted arms were tied up in positions of honor; other items such as winged helmets and polished breast plates rolled about upon the floor, forgotten. These were a scavenging people and they took what they wished from their fallen foes—for what purpose, besides personal adornment, Sam could not tell. 

One item that clearly held distinction in the clutter of the tent was the enormous pointed black helm and long heavy sword that hung over the Chieftain's throne. From the sheer size and lack of distinctive markings, Sam could only guess these items had once adorned the Lord of the Nazgul, the Witch-King. It was told to Sam in Rivendell that no man could kill this monster of darkness, but it seemed someone had. It seemed as if this Chieftain had, but then the legend would have been false. 

_You should have seen Merry, Sam,_ Pippin had said. _He felled a wraith!_

Sam looked up at the sheer mass of that sword and shook his head. _Not a chance. Not without half of Buckland with him, and most likely not even then. _Sam hoped he would one day learn the real story from the Master Meriadoc himself, but first he had to steal another ring. 

In the red light seeping through the tent folds from outside torches, Sam could just catch the glint of the silver ring that hung about Zut-Ak's neck. Some time had passed since Sam first crawled up, and although the dark-skinned man did not snore, he had not moved since reclining upon the throne. Sam looked to the guard at the flap, but his white eyes were watching only the movements outside. No one expected an intruder to be within. 

Slipping silently from his hiding place, Sam stepped cautiously across the floor towards the throne, hoping the Oliphaunt would stand reasonably still so he wouldn't stumble on a rolling gauntlet or two. The beast did not start or sneeze, and soon Sam found himself climbing up the side of the bone-chair, near the Chieftain's neck. The Witch-King's silver ring looked much as the Ruling Ring had, unmarked to the common eye and beautiful to behold. Zut-Ak wore it under his drooped chin upon a strap of hide, folded to slide through the ring's centre. This posed a problem for Sam; there would be no simple way to slip it off. The hide needed to be cut and it would take a good slice or two from Sting to achieve this, all without waking the Chief. 

Sam looked about for a solution. Behind him, hanging from the wall, was a long Gondorian arrow with a sharp steel arrow on the end. This was a much smaller blade than Sting and could perhaps do the job with less movement and fuss. Sam lifted the arrow from its loop of rope, and after holding it a moment or two, it vanished in his hidden hands. Once again, Sam found it impossible to do close work without the aid of his fingers in the visible world. So with great caution, he took off one of the dwarvish rings and dropped it in his pocket. A pale vision of himself returned, so Sam kept one eye on the door and another on the hide as he pulled it back slowly to slip the arrow under the cord and began to saw. 

The cutting was slow but steady, and Sam held his breath as much as he could while he worked, pausing to gasp silently and to wipe his sweating brow. Sam was moving the arrow for the final cut when his worst fear came to light, the Oliphaunt stirred, shifting its weight from one back leg to the other, knocking Sam off balance and taking the arrow shaft with him, tightening the hide and choking the Chieftain right out of his light sleep. 

Sam scrambled to his feet and drew Sting as Zut-Ak rose to his feet, his hands at his own throat, puzzled to see an arrow and shaft had joined his neckwear while he slumbered. He called to his guard who came running. The Chieftain shouted, pointing and Sam was soon spotted, though he was little more than a shadow. 

In his panic Sam did the first thing he could think of, and that was to leap up and tug with all his might on the Chieftain's hide strap. The leather snapped back and the Chief spun about, knocking Sam and Sting into the drapery and crashing the stolen metalwork to the floor as the tent hides tore and fell. Sam and the Chief fell as well, becoming all tangled up in the tent flaps and ropes. To his astonishment, Sam realized he still held Sting in his right hand and Zut-Ak's torn leather in his left, with the ring still attached. Sam cut it free with a slice if his blade and did the most obvious thing: he put the large silver ring on his finger. 

Sam screamed. 

The torch-lit world upon the back of an Oliphaunt ceased to exist. In its stead were images of horror, of vast burning halls and twisted forms of men and women with hollow eyes crawling about on their hands and knees in terror. They were blackened and bloody, burning as fire filled their throats and smoke blinded their eyes. But Sam did not just see these things; he smelled them, heard them gurgling in their melting flesh; he felt their skin crisp and peel, hundreds of them falling over white stones down into black pits that opened up before them, falling--all falling--into death and darkness. And then the vision changed to one of a high vista, looking down upon the length of the falls that blanketed the Window on the West. The horsemen of the Riddermark were leaping from its height and down into the pool, drowning in a wild dark madness as if death itself were on their heels. There was blackness and the last vision Sam saw was of Pippin, running ahead along the path that lead to the secret cave where Gandalf had held his council. "Hurry! Hurry!" he shouted. "We must hide!" 

_Leap!_ A voice spoke and the terror-visions faded. _Get on your feet and leap!_

But Sam could not; he was writhing upon the bamboo floor where he had crumpled, fighting to pull off this horrid ring that had sucked him right out of the will to breathe. He screamed as the Harad men grabbed him and pulled him up; he screamed as they held the torch to his face, burning his cheek, trying to see something that wasn't there. Their cries of fear and anger rose and fell with the echoing screams of the burning people and Pippin's frightened pleas. Sam did not know if his flesh was still upon his bones or not for it had all been burned away by the terrible fire. A screech seared the wind. The dark hands that held Sam, dropped him and the men cried out, falling into the folds of the tent to hide. Sam hit the flooring hard and jarred loose the ring from his finger where it rolled away, shimmering. 

The floor rattled as the Oliphaunt started and began to lumber into a run, throwing everything out of order, though the burning had stopped. Sam tasted blood on his teeth as he raised his head to look above him. The white fangs of a fellbeast filled his vision as an arm of blackness reached down from the saddle to catch the rolling silver. 

_Catch it, Samwise! Catch it now!_

Sam dove forward and his fist closed about the cold metal. The wraith above him screeched and Sam could bear that loathsome sound no more. He grabbed Sting from where it had fallen and got to his feet, running until there was no further to run--over the side of the platform, over the rump and tail of the fleeing beast he ran until air was all that was holding him up. 

There was a flash of blue flame as Sam fell, and then all went white. 


End file.
